Normal and the Paranormal
by elle.writes
Summary: For five years Bruce and his alter-ego had lived in relative peace on the outskirts of society. But then paranormal investigator Tony Stark came to Bruce's home - and though Tony didn't know it, he was looking for Bruce.
1. Chapter 1

**Normal and the Paranormal** by ELLE

Pairings/Warnings: Bruce/Tony, background Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane, Steve/Peggy, modern day paranormal AU, slow build, mild angst, explicit language, explicit sexual situations, marijuana use, minor original character death, graphic depictions of violence, mention of a past suicide attempt

Notes: I took the name "Green Mountain" from a real place however the place described here is a fictional amalgamation of many places I have been up and down the eastern United States. As always I'd like to thank my gf for listening to me bitch about this monstrosity as I worked and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement along the way. 3 It has been a grueling process figuring out a new workflow for my writing and this isn't the best work I've ever done by a long shot but I'm incredibly proud of myself for seeing it through.

* * *

Steve's office was just what you would expect: textbook. The little desk was a pleasant mess – an aging cup of coffee perfectly placed in the circular stains embedded in a rubber Smokey the Bear coaster, a handful of sticky notes with little bits of information taped to the side of an ancient CRT computer monitor, folders open with papers placed directly over the desk calendar that had a little black and white picture and a blurb about a different national park every month. A long plastic bookshelf sat to the side containing a series of physical manuals printed out before the turn of the century and placed in boring brown binders that didn't look like anything you'd find at Office Max these days detailing any disaster that could befall a park – not that you'd have the time to reference one in the event of the apocalypse. There was a coat rack with his jacket, crowned with a very cowboy-esque hat he knew Peggy got him for Christmas one year that he was ridiculously proud of, as well as a few drawings made by his kids that were completely beyond Bruce's ability to decipher pinned to the wall.

It was cozy, he guessed, the chair he was sitting in with its cracked green pleather wasn't even particularly uncomfortable it was just – he hated Steve's office. There was a reason he was a park host and it because he did exceptionally poorly with people and well – offices.

He could hear Steve finishing up a farewell to the woman who was from out of state inquiring about where she could pick up supplies. It was the 'busy' time of year, those insufferably hot days at the end of July headed into August when people were irrational and stupid and for some reason thought to themselves "wouldn't it be a great idea to go camping and spend a week smushed into a hot tent with people we can barely stand for an hour at dinner?" Bruce hated the busy time of year. But Steve often helped out at the front desk, talking to tourists during these times, making things easier for Nat and the other girls where he could.

The bell on the door rang as the lady left and Bruce looked back down at his hands, fisting one in the other and failing to crack his knuckles while pretending he hadn't been impatiently looking over his shoulder and waiting for Steve to come back. He had absolutely no idea why Steve called him up and he just wanted to get this over with and get back to his trailer to do his rounds.

"Bruce!" Steve boomed as he entered, immediately seeming to fill the entire fifteen by ten foot space with his presence. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"It's fine," Bruce replied automatically, scratching at his jawline, trying not to be nervous.

Steve however took his time, sitting down and taking a swig at his coffee, face immediately betraying that he had forgotten it had been sitting there for the better part of the day... but he managed to swallow it anyway.

He glanced at the papers on his desk. Shuffled through them. Glanced up at the computer screen. Closed and then reopened one of the folders before closing it again. Finally, he looked up at Bruce.

"So have you seen whether campsite 45 has been occupied yet?"

Bruce stared blankly at him, not really expecting _that_. "I – was going to do my rounds after this meeting. I can check for you?"

Steve waved the offer away with one big hand. "No, no, that won't be necessary. The thing is – his name is Tony Stark and he's going to be here for at least a month, god forbid longer."

Bruce's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Steve had never called him into the office to talk about a camper before – even the destitute ones who stayed for several months.

"I guess you haven't heard of him?" Steve asked, face falling, as if the very idea of having to have this conversation made him sick. "Tony Stark – paranormal investigator... or whatever these crocks call themselves nowadays."

Steve gestured to the computer monitor and Bruce leaned way over his desk to get a glance at a website with the name "Tony Stark" emblazoned in huge stylish font across the top and a picture of what Bruce assumed was Tony himself done up in a stupid trendy vest and tie number with ridiculous facial hair next to some boilerplate text about hunting... ghosts? The inner urge to roll his eyes was difficult to suppress.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly," Steve commiserated as Bruce sat back in his chair again. "We've unfortunately caught some flak with the whackos after, well, you know – and now these people think there's some 'Green Mountain Monster' lurking around or – well, you've seen the tabloids."

Truth be told, Bruce hadn't. He deliberately avoided tabloids and rumors. But he heard what the other rangers and the girls at the desk were saying and sometimes campers flat out asked him about it, though he denied having ever heard anything other than the official investigation on the body that was found nearly two years ago in the wilderness reserve – though of course that was a lie.

"The thing is, I don't want this joker poking around filming stuff and getting himself hurt," Steve continued. "Or worse – getting the other campers upset or enticing them to go nosing around themselves. It's bad enough someone found a dead body out there, no matter how old it was. God forbid they'd find another."

Bruce was nodding his head along and looked up when Steve stopped talking to see just how serious he was. Steve had his fair share of stress since they'd uncovered that body, visions of his park being shut down completely causing him to spend long hours and a not insignificant amount of money on a brand new PR campaign. And Bruce felt more than guilty for that. He definitely owed Steve one, whether Steve knew it or not.

"Okay – so keep an eye on Tony Stark, got it," Bruce accepted without complaint and Steve smiled.

"I know I can count on you," he said, no small amount of guilt trip in those words but then Bruce had been here almost as long as Steve had and they both knew it was true.

Bruce felt it was safe to stand and so he did, stepping towards the door. But then he looked back over his shoulder a moment, regaining Steve's attention.

"I'll let you know if he starts getting out of hand."

Steve offered him that wink-smile-and-nod combo that had all the desk girls swooning but Bruce was glad to be walking out the door.

He threw a short wave at Nat at the desk and he thought she missed it behind the line of people checking in but her eyes darted to him for a moment and the edge of her mouth twitched up in acknowledgment. Nat had only become a permanent member of the team a year or so ago but she had quickly earned everyone's respect when she overhauled the check-in process. However Bruce liked her because she was just as concerned with her privacy as he was of his.

The day was hot and the sky was bright blue, no clouds at the Green Mountain Wilderness Reserve. It wasn't Bruce's favorite time of year – the heat could be oppressive, especially in a tiny trailer – but he loved the way it gave in to fall and cold nights and the smell of wood smoke. He pulled off the brown button down regulation park uniform shirt he really only wore when he went to the office and threw it in the passenger side of his beat up green Jeep, white undershirt already feeling damp.

It was a bit of a haul back to his trailer, actually, and he glared at the gas gauge for it's need to be refueled soon. The park was tucked up between a lake and a few hundred acre wilderness reserve, through the foothills of the mountains. Bruce noted the signs marking the beginning of a couple different trails to his left, as he always did, driving slowly for the magnitude of pedestrians and bicyclers this time of year. He had been through all the trails at one time or another – and far off the path into the protected areas of the reserve where guests were only supposed to wander 'at their own risk.'

There was several boat docking areas to his right and eventually he came up on the large cabin-style lodges that were available for parties and weddings and what not. There was a pavilion past them and several covered shelters, picnic areas, a massive playground for kids, and then beyond that a beach into the lake. Generally Bruce did everything he could to avoid this area with it's paddle boats and swarms of children and harried adults. After the lodges was an RV campsite with hook-ups that was managed by Bucky, who he passed on the way in with a two fingered wave off the steering wheel.

A little further down from there were the campsites, Bruce's 'home.' His little trailer was at the front with a sign mounted on a wooden pole proclaiming 'host' so people knew where to find him. Instead of turning into the lot, he decided to go do his rounds a few minutes early and check out campsite 45.

Each site was marked with a wooden pole with a number burnt into it and consisted of a large flat spot for putting up a tent and a parking area for a car, two tops. Every few sites there was a water spigot that had to be checked for excessive leakage and then there were three different bathroom areas he had to inspect and clean every morning, afternoon, and night. Bruce slowed down even further as he rolled through the campsites, hawkeyed and knowing what was unusual after five years on the job.

It was the general mishmash of families and barely legal adults arguing, listening to music, drinking beer, trying and usually struggling to set up tents. He stopped to warn a family to keep their kids out of the road as much as humanly possible and again to tell a group of guys to keep their music down after dusk but when he pulled around to site 45, Bruce was somewhat surprised by how normal it looked.

For a minute, Bruce wondered if maybe Steve had the site number wrong. There was a pretty typical four person red Coleman set up on the tent site and an older model Scion xB parked on the lot. He could tell there was some serious equipment stashed in the back because the back door was open and Tony Stark was digging through it for... something.

At this point in his tenure Bruce didn't really get nervous approaching people on the park premises. But then he had never approached anyone like this before. Especially not someone who was specifically looking to expose him to the world.

Tony must've heard him pull up because he looked over his shoulder at the Jeep with it's staff stickers pasted on the sides and smiled. Bruce figured it was supposed to be friendly but all he felt was guarded.

"Hey boss," he greeted as he walked over, chewing a huge wad of gum and immediately aggravating the shit out of Bruce as he hated pet names. "What's up?"

"Look, I know who you are and I know what you're trying to do," Bruce started and Tony just grinned in a way that looked entirely too sarcastic in Bruce's opinion. "I don't know what you think you're going to find out here or if you even really believe this shit, but just leave the other campers alone and try to be safe, okay?"

Tony glanced at the ground, still smiling, shaking his head in disbelief. He really looked a lot less ridiculous in jeans and a faded AC/DC t-shirt than he did in his picture online, but unfortunately that image was branded into Bruce's mind and all he could see was a cocky little shit.

"You know there's really no law against it," he said as he looked back up, clearly amused, chewing on that gum with his absurd goatee and grin. "Not much you can do to stop me."

"If you're being sufficiently disruptive you will be required to leave," Bruce threatened, about as effective as an elementary school line leader – and Tony knew it.

"Your word is law, boss," Tony agreed with a smirk and a shitty two finger salute. "I'll be sure to direct any and all questions I might have to you, first."

Bruce didn't say anything but he suppressed the urge by tightening his mouth. He could tell just by the look on Tony's face that he knew _exactly_ what he was doing. But what was he going to say? Steve had asked him to keep an eye on Tony and frankly? Having Tony go through him first was the best way to accomplish that.

"Be sure that you do," Bruce warned, playing into his game without much choice.

Tony waved the tips of his fingers at him in a highly sarcastic way as he drove off, watching his smug smile in the rear view mirror for a moment – pissed. He hadn't really expected Tony to tuck his tail between his legs and run – hell, Bruce knew he wasn't _that_ intimidating. But after that pathetic exchange it felt a lot like Tony Stark, Paranormal Investigator: 1 and Bruce Banner, Resident Monster: 0.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony sat in a flimsy folding chair by his tent nursing a shitty Coors light, repeatedly unlocking his phone to stare at a text from Rhodey he didn't even know how to respond to.

 _He's barely lucid. Stane's gonna take it all if you let him._

The day was nice – hot, but cooler here in the mountains than in the city – and he wasn't really prepared to think about this right now. He had laid low for a few days, giving the park host a chance to chill out over him, and today was the day he had decided to go harass him. Now there was _this_ and instead of heading over to his trailer, Tony spent most of the morning in this seat, drinking warm beer and trying to figure out how he should feel, what he should do.

He rubbed the edge of the bottle against his bottom lip, rolling it into his mouth and running it along his teeth before taking a sip. After spending the first half of the day drinking, albeit slowly, he was definitely buzzed. And he was _definitely_ sick of sitting there deliberating. Tony was the kind of guy who just liked to _do_ things and not think about it too much. But this... He really should give it the consideration Rhodey was trying to force him to give. The problem was, every time he tried, he came to the same damn conclusion.

 _I'll go back when his body is in the ground._

Tony wrote the message out quickly and hit send, not giving himself the time to back out of telling Rhodey the truth. He did appreciate Rhodey's updates, but Rhodey didn't understanding. No one really understood.

Restless and tired of feeling powerless, he swallowed the last inch of the beer and stood, deciding that he would still head over and have a little chat with the host rather than lose another day. Not that he was on a schedule – but it would be nice to be able to write about something, do actual work he might eventually get paid for.

Stretching and feeling his spine pop, Tony walked over to his car and threw the bottle in a bag of several similar bottles he'd stashed in the passenger side to be taken out the next time he left. He looked at his car for a moment before deciding that he'd walk out to Bruce's trailer. It really was a gorgeous campsite and although he already felt that slick of perspiration threatening to soak his shirt with just a little vigorous exercise, Tony didn't get to spend a lot of time outdoors in places like this. Cemeteries, sure, and they were gorgeous in their own way – but the view here? With sunlight glittering off the lake peaking through the trees it felt surreal to him. He'd never camped as a child and the past few days, watching the family in the tent next to him, he felt like he'd missed out on a formative childhood experience. But then, imaging Howard in a tent instead of a five star hotel room was, well – pretty much impossible.

Tony made sure to smile at everyone he passed, wave, present himself as nothing other than the very model of a friendly yet uninterested camper in case he had to try to get any information from them at some point. But really, he didn't expect to, and it was funny that Bruce had assumed that. The only people he _really_ wanted to talk to were the park employees. They were the only ones with any true insight.

Bruce, though? He was going to be a bitch. Tony could already tell. After years doing this he knew who was going to crack and spill everything with just the right look and who was going to wrap themselves up so tight that he was going to have to take a sledgehammer to a brick wall. But the little old lady at the gas station outside the reserve – the kind that just loved to impart the unique knowledge she had gained over the years, including Bruce's name and his favorite type of trail mix – told him Bruce had been there longer than anyone and that he knew the terrain around here like the back of his hand. Bruce was the sure bet.

And that was why, for the first time in his life, he was in a tent, camping out on the scene, right under Bruce's nose.

Contrary to the popular belief of skeptics, Tony did a lot of research on each of his inquiries. Typically he prefered to do a seance or something – go in, clear a house of some imagined ghost, and leave – an easy enough wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am complete with a check for a couple hundred bucks. But the thing was – his "inquiries" were what made him famous, what brought people flocking to his site and convinced them to hire him.

Tony ran his hands through his hair, feeling off kilter and uncertain as he walked around the bend to the trailer, Bruce's Jeep parked outside, a little sign on the door proclaiming "the host is in." Pretty much his whole life philosophy was fake-it-til-ya-make-it so he tried not to focus on how physically shitty he felt or the background dissonance of his personal life as he walked up to knock on Bruce's door.

So when Bruce opened the door, Tony had himself pulled together with a charming grin that made Bruce frown as soon as he saw it.

"Hey boss," he greeted, watching Bruce try to conceal his disappointment and failing miserably. "Got a minute?"

Whatever he was cooking for lunch involved bacon and smelled amazing and Tony's mouth involuntarily started salivating. He was fucking _hungry_ but he wasn't going to let that distract him... much.

Bruce looked over his shoulder at the stove and then back at Tony, face set in a scowl. "What's up?"

"Can I come in?" he asked, not feeling like finessing this thing with Bruce. "I have a few questions I'd like to ask."

"This isn't really a great time for an interview," Bruce replied. "I'm making lunch."

"It's okay – I don't mind," Tony offered, putting it back on him to try to make another excuse.

To Tony's surprise though, he capitulated easily, opening the door wide and gesturing for Tony to take a seat as he headed back to the tiny stove to flip bacon.

For his part, Tony was in awe as he moved through the little trailer, trying to commit everything he saw to memory, though that was difficult. The place was definitely lived in, with books covering most surfaces, stacked up on the little fold out bed couch opposite the stove and kitchen appliances so that he doubted Bruce ever opened it with the amount of effort it would take to move them.

The tiny table for two against the singular wall that divided off his bedroom space had a teapot steaming on it among a few select volumes ranging from _The Political Discourse of Anarchy_ to _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ to _Jonathan Livingston Seagull_. There was a stack of bills too, addressed to a Robert and not Bruce, and a hand crocheted lace coaster stained with tea from years past and a floral cup waiting to be filled that was chipped but matched the pot. As he sat down in the slick and uncomfortable bench seats around the table he noticed that over the window above the sink Bruce had taped some kind of crystal from a string that shot rainbow reflections all through the trailer alongside what he was sure was meant to be a windchime that had an Indian flare, hammered out of metal with little elephants dangling above bells strung on chains threaded through colorful beads.

"You had questions?" Bruce asked absently, placing the bacon on a plate of paper towels to drain.

"Uh yeah – sorry." Tony laughed a little, trying to cover for his invasive sweep of Bruce's personal artifacts. "That just smells really good."

Bruce sighed as he crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the stove. "Would you like to join me?" he asked, clearly exasperated.

"Oh no I'm fine," Tony said despite himself, trying to win points with Bruce but clearly Bruce saw right through him because he rolled his eyes and got out two plates.

Now that it was established that he was eating too, Bruce let him off the hook a minute, waiting until they were both seated at the table, and Tony had another moment to soak in the intimacy of Bruce's trailer. There was really nothing that stood out as suspicious – he had a shotgun over the door but Tony figured that was practical, given the number of bear sightings in the area – just the homey inner workings of a private man.

Bruce brought him a teacup and doily to match the one of his already on the table and poured them both a cup without looking at him, dictating entirely that it would be taken as-is by not offering sugar or milk, before picking up the books and bills and making more space by moving them to the counter.

"So?" Bruce asked as he moved back to the oven, taking out a pie tin and setting it on the stovetop, moving effortlessly through the little space.

"You know what it is I do, right?" Tony asked, finding this question helped put interviewees at ease more often than not.

"Make up lies about unexplained events so that gullible people believe something supernatural occurred," Bruce replied, intentionally caustic, and Tony sighed. That was one way to look at it.

"All I really do is present the facts with possible explanations," Tony said, cautiously raising the cup of tea to his lips.

"You think there's a big foot wandering around in our woods." Bruce was clearly unimpressed, slicing into the pie pan with a knife and plating what appeared to be quiche.

"No one said big foot," Tony replied. "Not yet."

He tasted the tea, nearly burning his lips, unsure how anyone could drink something this hot in the middle of the day in the middle of summer – but it was actually good. Black tea with a hint of orange.

"Right – the tabloids call it the 'Green Mountain Monster.'"

Bruce forked bacon onto both plates and carried them over to the table, setting one in front of Tony and he saw that he was right – though it was the most gorgeous quiche he'd ever seen. A delicate puff pastry filled with moist bubbly eggs and tomatoes sliced over the top in perfect, thin rounds.

"I'm not the tabloids," Tony replied, Bruce lifting a suspicious brow as he handed him a fork and a napkin.

"You're not?"

"I don't get paid for this – this is an unbiased inquisition into what's out there, what could kill a person with nothing but some stress fractures to the bones and then hide the body in a grave no human could build."

Bruce didn't look up at him as he took a forkful of his quiche and so Tony didn't say anything, gave him a minute to digest that, and took a bite of his own.

Maybe it was the previously consumed alcohol, but damn that quiche was good. Cheesy, full of beautifully sauteed mushrooms and spinach and peppers. Tony couldn't think of the last time he'd eaten something that didn't come from a drive-thru or a box.

"So you're not actively trying to deceive people?" Bruce sounded skeptical.

Tony shook his head. "It's like this, boss –"

"Please – my name is Bruce," Bruce interrupted, visibly wincing and Tony couldn't help but grin, knowing he had a weakness.

" _Bruce_ ," he corrected. "People are going to believe whatever they want to believe. I'm just positing theories."

"Harmful, ridiculous, and cruel theories," Bruce bit, eyes back on his plate as he hacked at the quiche with his fork.

It was a strange reaction, way more emotional and unwarranted than Tony would've expected from him.

"Who does it hurt?" he scoffed. "People who need an escape? People who want to believe in something more than what's of this world?"

"The parents of that kid, maybe?" Bruce snapped, looking him in the eye, clearly furious. "Did you think about them, what you make them suffer through by dragging this on forever?"

Tony laughed outright. There was nothing he hated more than when some asshole tried to emotionally one-up him – there was nothing emotional about this, it was just business. But this time he had a trump card and he leaned back in the seat, smirked, and gestured openly.

"Who do you think asked me out here?"

Bruce stopped moving completely, but only for a minute. Maybe Tony wouldn't have noticed but he was watching for it, waiting, wanting the satisfaction. It was short lived however when Bruce resumed eating and declared unemotionally –

"I want you to leave."

Tony couldn't help but huff out a disbelieving laugh. "What?"

"Why do you think this is okay?" he asked, looking straight up at him again, visibly shaking. "To offer people – ridiculous supposition? What happened to their son was a tragedy and if you cared about people, if you cared about _them_ , you would've said no."

"It's better to deny hopeless people your help then poke around in the woods for a couple weeks and tell them some bullshit to help them cope?" Tony couldn't even believe what Bruce was saying, how upset he was about it. "They _begged_ me. This pissant little place wasn't exactly like high priority number one for me."

"You didn't see them when they came out to look at the crime scene, you didn't see them at the funeral." Bruce was so angry now that he was quiet. "You should've said no."

"Maybe _you_ should've cooperated with the police," Tony growled, dropping his fork on the plate as he stood. "But you didn't even care enough to give a statement."

"Nothing I said would've brought that boy back," Bruce muttered at his plate, scrambling the eggs into bits.

"But it might have brought them some peace," Tony shot back as he walked past, knowing that would sting for a while and regretting that he didn't get a chance to taste any of that wonderful smelling bacon.

Once he was out of view of the trailer he punched the air a few times in frustration. That went over about as... well. Something that didn't go over well at all. Bruce clearly knew something, there was some reason he avoided speaking to the police, and now he pretty much fucked up any chance of getting it out of him. If only he hadn't had to make this all about _feelings_ and _moral righteousness_.

His phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket to glance at the text from Rhodey.

 _Real mature_ , it read.

Well. At least he wasn't fooling anyone.


	3. Chapter 3

It was Friday. Payday. Bruce's weekly trip out to get gas and groceries. He slipped on his park uniform shirt and slid into the passenger side of the Jeep, still feeling off kilter and defensive from his interaction with Tony. Bruce hadn't been prepared for that. He should've been – but he wasn't. And the memories it brought back, the emotions – they had been difficult to shake.

So he spent most of the week thanking a god he didn't believe in that nearly every time he did rounds, Tony's car wasn't there, and when it was there, Tony was nowhere in sight. Bruce had managed to avoid him the past few days, lay low and lick his wounds, mentally prepare himself for another confrontation with Tony because he was sure it was inevitable.

And sure enough when Bruce pulled up to the office, there was Tony's car. He groaned inwardly, knowing it would be a stupid cowardly waste of time to go back to his trailer and wait out Tony's departure but really not wanting to incite a confrontation.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could do this.

It only took an embarrassing moment to motivate himself out of the seat and up the stairs into the office but whatever – he'd made it. And it wasn't hard to find Tony either, flirting with two of the front desk girls during an uncharacteristically quiet moment. Bruce was sure he was trying to glean some kind of information from them, but he had one's hand in his own and a finger tracing down the center of it and Bruce couldn't help but roll his eyes. He probably read tarot cards or some bullshit too.

Instead of even acknowledging Tony's presence, Bruce went straight to Nat, waiting patiently off to the side as she finished checking in a customer, providing him with a park map and parking tag.

"Paycheck?" she asked when she was through and he nodded, handing over his mail key.

Though usually he just waited by the counter for her, today he couldn't bear the thought of having to listen to Tony's obnoxious fake laugh one more second, and he quickly hurried after her into the mail room.

"He shouldn't be in here distracting the girls," Bruce said, unable to stop himself, his fear still visceral after being forced to see him, acting so casual – as if he wasn't a threat to Bruce's very existence.

Nat paused with the key halfway to his box and looked back at him with her patented _are you fucking serious?_ face.

"He's fine. He'll go away when he gets bored and he won't come back. He can do better than either of those two."

Bruce huffed. "Steve doesn't want us to encourage him."

It was petulant. It was immature. Bruce didn't care.

Natasha stopped with his box open and turned back to look at him again – really _look_. She squinted her eyes as if she could diagnose his problem with Tony in a careful sweep of his face – but that was one thing Bruce wouldn't expose that easily.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, keeping her attention focused on him and that was rare for her – it made him squirm a little.

"He's a hack, Nat," he said as if he were being forced to describe the sky. "He makes money on deceiving people. Why am I the one on trial here?"

Natasha sighed and turned back to the wall of mailboxes, pulling out his mail and relocking the box before moving over to unlock the lockbox where their paychecks were kept.

"Have you even read his website?" she asked, flipping through a stack of envelopes for the one with his name.

Bruce was pretty sure his silence was sufficient answer.

"Well I have," she continued, signing out his check on the ledger, adding it to his stack of mail, and relocking the box. "And honestly, Bruce – it's just a lot of words."

She handed him his collection of envelopes with a particularly insolent look.

"He talks about some incident that happened, he goes over the facts. Then he postulates a lot of crap. So-and-so said this, but someone else said that." She gestured with a sarcastic shimmy of her fingers. "' _Believe whatever you want to believe._ ' He's hardly a threat."

"Don't you remember the way those people looked?" he practically whispered, unable to believe she was dismissing this so easily.

"Look," Natasha said, trying to be sympathetic as she looked up at him. "What happened to that kid was awful, okay? And the Johnsons? That sucks. But they have to live with it now. People talk, they're always going to talk. That's going to haunt those people the rest of their lives. They have to learn to cope. That's not on you."

Except that it was.

Bruce sighed and tapped his mail in his hand, lining up all the edges. "You think I'm being too hard on him."

"Maybe." Natasha shrugged. "But I _know_ you're being too hard on yourself."

She gave him that pointed look with the tilt of her head and the little hint of a grin that simultaneously said _think about it_ and _you know I'm right_ before she walked out of the room, Bruce following on her heels.

Tony was still there, his presence seeming to expand like a multi-tentacle thing, occupying the whole space, and Bruce skirted through the edge so as not to let it touch him on the way out. But Tony didn't even glance in his direction.

Normally when he got to his car he'd go through the mail but today he just threw it all along with his shirt in the passenger seat and left, eager to feel the wind whipping around him on the open highway. Maybe he'd even burn the rest of his gas, go the long way to town.

And it did feel nice – the wind. For a minute he could forget about it. He lived every single day of his life trying to forget and sometimes – sometimes it worked.

Reality dictated that what he was – this... monster, this abomination – wasn't possible. And he appreciated reality for that, he really did. Even after he killed Taylor Johnson, no one suspected it was him. And no one ever would. Because no human could've killed him.

He wanted to be mad at Tony for being a liar, for deceiving people, like he said. But it was difficult because the fact was, Tony was right. He didn't _know_ he was right, that still made him a liar – it was easy to say, easy to defend his reaction that way because that's what people expected but... The truth was that Tony was too close. Way too close.

Bruce was sure Tony hadn't guessed anything as preposterous as the truth, but if he was open to that, it would only be a matter of time before he put the pieces together. The pressure was intense. He had to guide Tony away from suspecting. And not even because it would implicate him, because he might have to accept responsibility for the crime – in fact, in some ways that would give him peace – but because he didn't know what would happen to Tony if he was put in that position. He never, ever wanted to hurt anyone else ever again. Ever.

Instead of heading to town he continued on the highway, watching exit signs become more and more frequent the further he went from the mountains. He didn't come out this way often – in fact it had been almost a year since the last time he glimpsed the little house with the green and white paint and the pink roses she pruned so perfectly. It was just too risky. She believed he'd moved hundreds of miles away and he didn't want her to know how close he really was. But... he needed to be close to her now, if just for a moment.

Betty lived in one of those typical suburban neighborhoods with the rows of houses positioned along unnecessarily convoluted roads. However the benefit was that Bruce could park a street away from her house and glimpse it across her neighbors' lawns without her seeing him. One day he figured she would notice the Jeep, realize it must be his, but for now it was worth that risk.

The house was the same as ever – perfect and picturesque – exactly what she deserved. Bruce longed to walk up those stairs, knock on the door, see her beaming up at him, feel her arms around him as she wrapped him in a long overdue hug. But _that_ certainly wasn't worth the risk. It was better this way, safer for her.

He pulled out his phone and dialed her number, hating the way his hands trembled, feeling like an addict trying to get a hit of something he hadn't had in months. And when she picked up, worried as her voice was, it flooded him with calm.

"Bruce? Where are you? Are you okay?" her voice was breathy and panicked and he couldn't help but smile at her genuine concern.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine Betty, I'm fine," he murmured. "I just wanted to hear your voice."

The front door opened and she stepped out onto the porch with her phone pressed to her ear, searching frantically for him, the nephew he'd never met straddled across her hip and he bit his lip, aching at the sight of them. They both shared the same pale complexion, the same dark hair – her's twisted back into a long braid, his a thick mop on his head, tangling over his eyes as he stared up at his mother with confused adoration. Her eyes searched the streets but she didn't see him there, at the distance and the angle he was at, though every fiber of his being was willing him to go to them, be with them, the only family he had left.

"It's been so long since I've heard from you," she said, still standing there like she knew he was there and if only she could open a hole in space and time he would appear. "I've worried about you. So much."

"I'm sorry." He could feel his eyes tearing up and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as he swallowed back a sob, trying not to betray himself so she didn't worry, but he was sure it was futile. "I'm so sorry."

"Bruce..." Her voice was clearly concerned as her face fell and she started to give up looking for him. "I don't know where you are, but I wish you would visit. I miss you."

"I miss you too," Bruce said, wiping away tears and pulling himself together as he watched her go back inside, sweeping her eyes along the street one last time. "Every day."

"You're really okay?" she asked and he lay his head down on the steering wheel, staring at the door, still feeling her presence there, still connected to her.

"Yeah I mean – there's some stuff at work but – yeah," Bruce assured her. "I'm okay." There was an uncomfortable pause. "I would tell you if I had to... leave. Again."

"Bruce." Her voice was soft and in his mind he could see the look in her eyes, that gentle look that tempted him to believe it was going to be okay – even when he knew better.

"Look, I didn't really want to talk about me." He took a deep breath. "I wanted – I wanted to hear about you and your book and Jude."

There was a moment of silence and he knew Betty was angry with him, knew she wanted to argue and talk about him and why he couldn't come back. It had been almost seven years and still she couldn't accept it. And he knew it didn't make sense – they had never talked about it, he had never told her the truth – but when was she going to let it go? There were times he couldn't control it and he would never forgive himself if he hurt her. Never.

"Well..." She hesitated, on the verge of a lecture but Bruce knew she was going to capitulate. "You're going to have to visit your nephew at some point. He adores that picture of us in the big sombreros at that Mexican place, the one we went to for your birthday?"

Bruce couldn't helping laugh a little, remembering how tipsy and flushed he was when they brought out those hats and ice cream and sang to him. That was a good night.

"How? He's not even two. He can't 'adore' it," Bruce argued reasonably just to hear her play devil's advocate.

"He does!" she insisted, laughing with him. "I have it sitting on my desk in a tacky little frame and he walks over and points every time he comes in!"

"He's probably pointing out how ridiculous you looked," Bruce teased, easily falling into the comforting sound of her voice, the familiarity of their banter.

"Me?" she replied, completely indigent. "You were trashed!"

"I wasn't _trashed_ ," Bruce answered with a snort. "I only had that one margarita –"

"That was as big as your head!"

"– and I can – hey, that's beside the point," Bruce replied, grinning so hard it hurt. "It was _one_ drink."

And for an hour, as they argued their way amiably through the past, Bruce forgot about Tony and the monster he was underneath and the people he had killed, clinging to those good moments with her, the naive and innocent view she had of him – only the best of him. It seemed easy to believe in the best of himself too, when he was talking to her. But even then, he knew the truth and it wasn't her version of reality – it was Tony's.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for my negligence with posting this. I didn't intend to fall so far off track of my weekly updates but I ran into an issue in chapter 20 that took a while for me to figure out and required me to go back and edit as far as this chapter... ha! So that's why I don't typically post work before it's completely complete. -_-! Hopefully though from here on out that won't be an issue. Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!

* * *

Tony figured an apology to Bruce that was even the least bit insincere had about a snowball's chance in hell of going over well. He'd spent some time giving him space, especially after watching Bruce channel every ounce of his existence into ignoring Tony when they occupied the same fifteen feet in the visitor's center for literally less than a solid minute, and instead spent his time informally interviewing the other park employees to see if maybe Bruce wasn't his only option. But Bucky – the other host – was new and had no idea where the body was found, admitting to only going into the reserve with Bruce a few times. And the other park employees weren't much better – all of them telling him the same damn thing: 'Bruce is your man.'

So then he spent some time thinking about Bruce, thinking about his reaction. It wasn't exactly uncommon – being accused of ripping people off, of being a charlatan and a hack came with the territory when your business card read 'paranormal investigator.' Sure, Bruce's reaction might have been a _little_ more emotionally charged than normal but he obviously had some kind of extreme attachment to this park. Tony was going to have to respect that if he had even a prayer of gaining Bruce's cooperation.

And he did want Bruce's cooperation.

But apologies weren't actually a strength of Tony's. He didn't do shit he felt was wrong often and so he didn't really understand why he had to apologize when he didn't do anything wrong. But Bruce felt like he did, and his professional curiosity hinged on it, so he sucked it up, went to town, picked up a case of decent beer and a couple pricey filets, and headed over to Bruce's trailer one evening almost two weeks after they last spoke.

Was he nervous? Yeah. More than he'd like to admit. He was pretty sure the best case scenario here was Bruce accepted his peace offering and kicked him off his lawn. It was going to be a slow process gaining back his trust and well – that sucked. But Tony knew he had to start somewhere.

So he walked up to Bruce's door and knocked.

He was left hanging for a moment and was embarrassed to find himself imagining running away as quickly as possible and hoping Bruce didn't see – but at least in the end he could say he didn't. Instead, he was greeted with Bruce's hard, disappointed face and an unfriendly scowl.

"Tony," he greeted, as efficiently as possible.

"Hey I know this is kind of shitty and unexpected but –" he held out the steaks and the beer, trying not to whip out his patented puppy dog eyes and wreck the whole thing with an appeal that would massively backfire on someone like Bruce "– I just wanted to apologize for the other day. I was way out of line. I'm –" he swallowed and hated himself for this necessary act of contrition "– sorry."

Bruce's eyes narrowed, as if he was scanning Tony for any hint of false pretense – but ultimately he held out his hand and took the steaks from Tony, glancing at the paper.

"You went to Bucky's guy," he observed blandly, but Tony was pretty sure he was just stonewalling him.

"Yeah. He said your favorite was filets. That's what I got," Tony offered.

They both knew they were expensive as shit and the silence between them was heavy as Bruce assessed this offering. There was no way he could deny that it was a thoughtful gift tailored especially to him.

"You didn't have to do this," Bruce spoke at last and there was a hint of resignation in his voice that gave Tony hope.

"No – really," Tony said, "I wanted to." And that was the truth. Bruce couldn't catch a lie on him there.

"Look." Bruce looked up at him for the first time since he'd opened the door and handed him the steaks. "I was wrong too. I – I shouldn't have reacted like that."

"No, no," Tony tried to argue, but Bruce just kept right on talking.

"It was unprofessional. And I was going to start dinner in a bit but –" there was a brief pause and Bruce looked back down again at the steaks in his hand "– maybe I could grill these and you'd join me?"

Now it was Tony's turn to assess, unsure what the fuck this was about. It was way the hell not what he was expecting, that was for sure. But there was a vulnerability to Bruce's request that seemed sincere and so without questioning it too much, he agreed.

Then Bruce disappeared into his trailer for a minute before coming back out with hands free and bypassed him completely to go to a little storage shed on the far side of his lot, past his Jeep. Tony could already tell this dinner was going to be super fun, but he would suffer through it for the sake of science and professionalism. Or something.

He stood there outside the front door of Bruce's trailer for a minute until he realized that Bruce was getting stuff to make a fire and then Tony jumped to help him, leaving the beer on the step. They took out charcoal and newspaper and lighter fluid and some folding chairs and carried it over to the grill he had on the property, Tony setting up the chairs as Bruce started a fire in silence. It was interesting to watch him though – he had a very deliberate method of doing it that Tony felt sure was optimized to create the most effective fire and honestly he would've liked to have had an explanation but he didn't know how to ask without potentially destroying this delicate moment.

"I'm going to prepare the steaks while this settles," Bruce explained when he was done, wiping his palms on his jeans. "Watch it and make sure to turn it if it starts to smother."

For his part Tony nodded, not really sure exactly what that meant, and watched Bruce walk away and back into the trailer. He couldn't exactly blame Bruce for not inviting him in, but he also hated waiting. So he went and got his beer, cracked one open, and sat down to watch the fire for smothering – or whatever.

Bruce was gone a long time. At one point Tony got up and poked at the fire just to say he did, watching the coals and wondering if he shouldn't just leave. Maybe Bruce was in there laughing at him. That would've been exceptionally immature behavior and while Bruce didn't seem completely 'normal,' so to speak, he didn't seem like he'd do that.

But eventually he did come out and check on the fire himself, still mostly avoiding actually looking at Tony and in a way that was comforting – at least he was as uncomfortable as Tony was – but at the same time, Tony was getting drunk and he was getting bored. It was a bad combination. Surely he was going to end up putting his foot in his mouth again.

Bruce said something about being almost done and needing to give the fire a few more minutes and then he made his way back to the trailer. Tony frowned and sat back down, deflated, the momentary excitement of Bruce's presence gone.

It was about fifteen more minutes before Bruce returned with a tray that had the steaks, some aluminum foil packages, plates and grilling utensils along with his own dark beer – a fact that Tony noted. He rearranged the coals before putting the food on and then sat back in his chair, rolling his bottle in his hands and staring at the grill so as not to have to look at Tony.

"You really care about this place," Tony observed quietly after a moment, knowing he had to do something to rescue this night or risk alienating Bruce completely.

Bruce scratched at the back of his neck, eyes moving to the ground before he shrugged and sipped his beer.

"Yeah."

There was a very long pause where Tony thought that was all he was going to offer, not even try to help him out with a conversation. But then Bruce shifted in his seat, running his knuckles along his jaw, clearly uncomfortable but trying.

"We almost lost it – you know. Er – well. Steve did. After. After the body was found."

Tony was looking at him, trying to follow, and Bruce spared a quick glance upward to see if he understood before looking back down at his beer.

"The park contract. The reserve is federal but the park is state and..." he trailed off, thumbing the label of the beer. "They almost shut down the park completely. But. There's camps that use this facility every year with nowhere else to go and they lobbied for us, tried to get the news to bury any more stories about the – the murder. And god – the money Steve spent on that ad campaign..."

"I can imagine," Tony sympathized, amazed the Bruce was telling him this and hoping he didn't fuck it up.

"I don't..." Bruce looked like he'd rather be waterboarded than say whatever he intended to say and he paused and took a few gulps of beer before continuing. "I don't really have anywhere else to go. I'm sure you've talked to the other park employees – they're all pretty new, yeah? I've been here five years, longer than anyone and... I'm just protective."

Tony was nodding. "It makes sense I mean – I haven't had anywhere that was 'mine' for... fuck." He paused, calculating. "Five... almost six years? Shit. That's a long time to live out of a car." But he was laughing about it and Bruce was looking up at him with an open look Tony had yet to see on him.

"I figured you'd have... a base of operations?" Bruce asked, genuinely curious and Tony shook his head.

"Nah – all outta the car," Tony admitted, gesturing vaguely with his hand. "I mean, I have a PO Box in New York that I check sometimes but..." and he finished with a shrug.

A comfortable silence fell over them as Bruce got up and turned the steaks, retaking his seat and his beer and settling into this new information the same way Tony was. Finally he looked up and asked –

"Why'd you leave?"

"Home?"

Bruce nodded and Tony dug his heel into the ground, trying to think of the best way to explain it. Not very many people were sympathetic once they knew he really _was_ heir to a fucking fortune. Well. Maybe. He was pretty sure Obie was writing him out of the will right now.

"My dad was... not exactly great at that job description," Tony finally said and Bruce's stare became kind of intense as he interrupted.

"Was he abusive?"

Tony blinked and assessed how focused Bruce was on him and he had a feeling this question was very personal for Bruce. Not a lot of people just flat out asked that – not unless they had a history.

He just kind of shrugged again, sipping his beer. "Did he put his hands on me? A couple times, yeah, but not like – you know. Not really. Most of it was mental. Manipulative, narcissistic, sadistic. That was more his vein."

Bruce cast his eyes down for a minute, nodding, face clouded with some memory Tony wanted to pry into but he stopped short. This whole thing was about earning Bruce's trust – not driving him away.

"But really – maybe I could've dealt with that shit, you know – I knew what he was doing," Tony continued, Bruce studying his beer again, giving him space. "But he wanted me to commit to the business and – shit. Stark Industries, you know? That's – I was heir to that."

Bruce's eyes shot up at that – everyone knew the popular electronics manufacture. Most people didn't assume Howard Stark's kid was a paranormal investigator and therefore figured he was no relation. Most people were wrong.

"Jesus – fuck," Bruce said, alarmed. "You gave up _that_?"

"You know." Tony kinda laughed, forcing it through his teeth though he didn't feel it. "There's a whole lot of shit people don't know about SI and I'm not just talking about their questionable manufacturing processes and Chinese slave labor."

Like the fucked up amount of heroin they smuggle in from China. But what was Tony going to do? Obie ran that whole operation and that guy would kill him – no fucking joke, he would, and he wouldn't give a single fuck. Tony felt the barrel of a gun against his head and he knew it wasn't an idle threat. But he'd be damned if he was responsible for a single kid dying thanks to Obie's fucking drug trafficking. And if he played his cards right, maybe he could take the whole thing down when he father died. He just couldn't give Obie a chance to get to him first.

"I bet," Bruce accepted without any further prodding, for which Tony was immensely grateful. "I left about seven years ago too. It's not easy but –" Bruce looked completely defeated "– it's also not hard when you have a good reason."

"I'd toast to that," Tony mumbled, tilting his beer bottle in Bruce's direction and Bruce acknowledged with a cursory tip of his own.

Nothing else was said until the steaks were done and Bruce plated them alongside what he'd prepared in the tin foil – a side of all these beautifully seasoned summer vegetables. Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, corn, summer squash. He hadn't eaten a meal like this well – not since he'd last gone home. And that had been in a five star restaurant not over a campfire with the light dying and a steak literally in his lap sitting across from a glorified park ranger.

But the first bite still melted in his mouth, the perfect combination of butter and salt and char and fuck – must've been the beer and the way he grilled a steak but when Tony looked up at Bruce, backlit by the sunset with his wild hair all tangled, dressed in nothing but one of those tight white undershirts he seemed to prefer, Tony realized he was actually pretty damn good looking, too.

"God Bruce," Tony purred, trying to be casual, _maybe_ borderline flirty, but certainly not like he was emotionally vulnerable enough right now to fuck the hell out of this guy. "You looked like the kinda guy who could grill a steak but damn – this is _perfect_."

Bruce shrugged, completely unphased by the compliment, as if it couldn't even apply to him. "They're good steaks."

Tony didn't try again, opting instead to savor every bite as they ate in silence. But it was the kind of silence that spoke louder than words for Tony – which was rare. There was a level of kindred spirit happening for Tony that took him completely by surprise and had him glancing up every so often, trying to assess... _why_? Why _this_ guy? But then – he wouldn't have suspected it with Rhodey either when they first met. Historically it did seem the people he ended up valuing the most were those who were the least likely to put up with his bullshit.

When they'd finished Tony reserved the compliments he wanted to lavish upon the wonderful meal, knowing now that Bruce would read them as insincere, and instead helped Bruce pack up the chairs and take in their plates and trash. Though there was still a soft glow outside – plenty enough light to walk back to his tent by – it was dark in the little trailer as Bruce set the plates in the sink and Tony made to let himself out. But Bruce called his name and turned back to look at him, Bruce's face obscured by the shadows cast into the tiny space.

"Do – do _you_ believe in what you do?" he asked, breathy and nervous, eyes glinting as a faint bit of light caught them, making him look strange and otherworldly and Tony didn't really understand but he paused, wanting to give Bruce a real answer.

"I don't know," he said at last, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, not used to admitting that and feeling incredibly uncomfortable. "Seances and spirit cleansings and shit? No. I don't really believe it but hey – what the fuck? Some people go to church, some people burn sage, whatever makes you feel good. But..."

Tony paused, this part was the hardest part to admit, especially to a skeptic like Bruce – but he wasn't going to lie.

"I have seen some strange shit in the past few years, shit I couldn't even hope to explain. I don't want to say it was ghosts or aliens or whatever but – shit. Go ahead and judge me if you want but there are things in this world that defy explanation. And I know – because I've seen them."

Bruce didn't say anything, closed his eyes for a moment, paused – just the slightest hesitation – before he turned to the sink to do the dishes. Tony waited a minute, waited for a follow up question or a goodbye, but Bruce seemed to wholly forget about him, lost in his own thoughts. So Tony smiled a tight little smile at his back, half waved his fingers goodnight, and left Bruce to chew over whatever it was that made him ask that question as he did the same.


	5. Chapter 5

The night was cold on his warped, thick skin, the earth shifting under his giant feet, toes digging into the dirt and propelling him forward with superhuman strength and speed. He was chasing something quick but weak and he could smell it, could smell the fear on it, and he wanted it, wanted to feel it in his fingers, feel that flighty heartbeat against his palms as he snuffed it out.

It was dumb prey but it felt fear and that was good enough for the beast. He had been caged too long and now – now he was free. And he would feel the earth and taste the sky and crush the scampering seething scared things in his hands and he would _live_. He would be _free_.

This distance was closing between him and his prey, a wicked grin splitting his mouth, tongue darting out to lick his lips. He was close – he could reach out and touch it as it leapt through the foliage and over logs but if he reached out now he would lose it. Just a little closer...

He heard the shuffle of spindly legs slipping on leaves and in one fortuitous moment he reached out, a massive hand closing around a thigh, dragging the creature back towards him as his other hand reached for the neck. For one moment he looked it in the eyes, panting, hot breath washing over it's face as it's primitive eyes bulged, wild with fear.

The crack of bones breaking in his hand and the desperate huff of death satisfied him in a way that was perverse and wonderful. It was physical in its manifestation and he wanted more – wanted to kill and fight and rut and prove his dominance. But there was nothing like him. And he had already won.

The creature in his hand went limp and he turned it over, head flopping to the other side along the break in it's neck, studying it and grunting. He played with it for a minute, watching it's dead body move under his hands, quickly growing bored.

He snorted, discarding the body without a second thought. The smell of a thousand creeping crawling things was in his nose but he could feel his strength waning and he cried out like he was wounded, listening to other creatures disperse at his distress.

His breathing became labored and he ran, sliding down the mountainside, scared of the pain. But unable to stop it he collapsed, body heaving with contortions, moaning into the night.

The pain was insufferable, the grind of bones otherworldly as his body reshaped itself into something more human. His moans became softer as he rolled in the damp leaves and undergrowth in the forest, trying to crawl out of his own skin to avoid the agony of transformation. It was always worse going back, as if nothing fit quite the same, as if his body was too small for his bones and they had to split to fit back in.

When Bruce finally regained control of his own mind it still flared with pain and he groaned, huddled around himself and writhing. Even despite having experienced this over and over and over again, it was always disorienting, Bruce always felt lost, like he was flung a million miles away from home and abandoned and he'd never make it back.

He cried out, tears pricking his eyes as he drug his face from the dirt and looked around, trying to get his bearings but it was hard when he was in the middle of hundreds of acres of wilderness reserve. Thankfully he always knew to head downward and once he got low enough there'd be trail markers, marks he'd left in trees, ways of finding his way back. The – the monster in him managed not to leave the reserve, it was his... his hunting ground of sorts, handed to him on a silver platter by Bruce, and Bruce was merely thankful that it was enough to maintain his attention for the past five years.

Bruce drug himself up off the ground, naked, wanting to cry but knowing he had to hold his shit together until he got back to his trailer unseen. He was physically shaking, starving, exhausted, and he didn't even feel like he could stand another minute let alone make it all the way back home but he had to. He had to.

So like so many nights before he began to head down to the campgrounds at the base of the mountain, praying for the cover of darkness, unsure of the time but hoping – _hoping_ – he had enough left to get home.

After about five minutes his inferior human senses came back to him completely and he realized he could hear the sound of water and felt a brief glimmer of relief as he headed towards it at an angle. It was a stream he knew, one that headed to the lake, taking him close by the campsites and his trailer.

The stream was comforting and familiar to Bruce and he found his breathing evened out as he followed it home, not having to think too hard or too much about what he been doing or what he – what he had _been_ only thirty minutes ago. And eventually he reached the place where the stream took a gentle turn and he wandered off in the other direction, to the flat ground that lead back to his trailer.

He poked his head out of the treeline to glance around but all was quiet across the road. It was still quite dark, maybe five in the morning or so, he figured, and he shot across the pavement as quickly as he could, hardly feeling it on the soles of his feet. The gravel of his personal driveway however cut into the soft pads of his feet as he rushed into his trailer, the door still ajar from when he left, halfway transformed into that... _thing_.

The door slammed and he locked it, fingers slipping on the latch, shaking worse than before. It was like as soon as he got home he finally felt safe enough to completely fall apart and he tripped his way into the shower, not even bothering to turn the water on and waste it, just fitting himself into the tiniest space in the trailer that he could.

He wanted to cocoon himself in there. His body whole body was trembling like he was freezing but he wasn't cold at all, he couldn't feel anything, nothing but the pain in his bones and the frantic beating of his heart and how tight his chest felt.

Snippets of his time as that monster ran skipping and fading and violent through his mind and he could feel that animal in his hands and he could feel it's bones breaking and he pressed his legs together and he grabbed his hair and he rocked his head into his knees and tried to stifle a scream. Sometimes Bruce felt like he was that animal, being choked to death by that monster, his body nothing more than a disposable piece of flesh to him.

He cried. For a long time he sat there, sobbing and hyperventilating and trying not to panic and doing a spectacularly bad job at that. But eventually he settled enough to know that he had to get up. He couldn't let this thing control him. The more he hid, the more upset he got, the worse it was, the more incidents occurred. He had to get up and go on like he always did. He had to pretend he was normal.

The relatively hot water of the shower helped calm him down a little, muscles still twitching as the shaking slowly abated, knowing he would need time and food to make the residual weakness disappear completely. He just wished he could stop his mind from running through the vague, sensual, and terrifying memories that weren't really his, stop the disconcerting feeling of not being real.

Bruce toweled off slowly, dragging out a soft, worn shirt and jeans and feeling more human just to put them on, the familiarity comforting. There was a little dish on his dresser that had some spare change, his keys, and a few interesting rocks in it from which he picked up his mother's dainty and underwhelming wedding ring with just a speck of a diamond and fingered it a moment, the way he did every morning. The last remaining tangible piece of her he had. He wondered, not for the first time, what she would've thought had she known she had a monster for a husband _and_ a son.

He set it down, trying to shove the dark memories surrounding his parents' death away as he pocketed his wallet and keys, moving to the kitchen.

It seemed kind of perverse to eat meat with the memories of that monster choking the life out of animals in the forest crawling through his brain but he _craved_ it after a transformation in a way that made him feel sick to his stomach. There were times, earlier, before he had the little bit of control that he now maintained, where he had chewed through half a raw steak before he even realized what it was he was doing. Now, though, he just slapped a pile of lunch meat on a sandwich with a cursory piece of cheese and ate like he was starving, glad there was no one to observe that display.

Self-loathing settled in like a mantle over his shoulders and not for the first time he wished he would just die. He knew it wasn't something he could accomplish on his own though, having attempted it after his first transformation as a teen, his first transformation since living with the Rosses, since he thought it had ended, since he thought he had control, thought he was finally _normal_. But that was a near disaster – just glad he was alone in the house when he attempted it, a bathtub full of bloody water and he was half-transformed before he made it out of the house into the night.

So instead he just sunk into depressive episodes after each incident, moving through the campground like a harbinger of death, silent and glaring and locking himself in his trailer as much as possible.

But now...

Now there was a man living here in the park, who knew he was here, who wanted to photograph him as that thing, wanted to document it and show it to the world, expose him, ensure that he would hurt more people by bringing them here to see it. And that probably exacerbated his lack of control – he'd been able to maintain his human form for almost a year now until tonight. But if the stressor didn't disappear, he didn't know how many nights it would be before Tony caught him – er, it. The monster.

It was a disaster waiting to happen and this just highlighted how bad the situation truly was. All Tony had to do was get a hankering to go out monster hunting in the middle of the night. He might – _it_ might feel like it had no choice but to kill him.

Bruce sighed and ran his hands through his damp hair in frustration he could only feel on the periphery of the empty void inside him. But there was nothing he could do now, at this moment, and so he opened the door to do his rounds – an hour late but nonetheless.

At the time, he hadn't known whether to feel scared or relieved that Tony actually believed in the paranormal to some degree. Well, actually, though he didn't want to admit it, he had been relieved. He – whatever he was – was a real thing to Tony, in a way that he couldn't be real to other people. If Tony had seen him as... as what he _was_... he wouldn't be impossible. But now?

Just as Bruce nosed his Jeep out to pull onto the road the devil was driving past, throwing him a friendly wave on his way out, making Bruce's heart sink into his stomach. Now it seemed pretty fucking problematic that he was a monster and there was a person here who believed in monsters who was ready and willing to show him to the world.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been nearly six months since the first tentative e-mail Tony had received from Taylor Johnson's older brother, Mark. And for most of their communication, Tony never really believed he would indulge them. A murder that happened just four years ago? A family desperate for an explanation? That wasn't really his thing. Despite what he might have said to Bruce, he didn't really believe in offering people false hope – and he wasn't really sure what he _could_ offer the Johnson's.

But when he did the research it wasn't just suspicious – it was downright weird. The body had been found almost two years after the event, completely by accident by a couple of hikers. In fact they had a difficult time relocating it after it had been reported because it was so far from any trail. And the body was in a weird kind of grave – very human – with rocks piled over it that were larger than any single person could lift. After two years of decomposition it would've been easy to assume it was an animal attack but for the grave. And the autopsy, which based on stress fractures to the bones, looked as though it had been strangled. There were no teeth marks in the bone, no claws, nothing that indicated it was an animal. And an animal definitely wouldn't have built a gravesite. The body could've been hidden there forever but for those hikers who weren't even supposed to be that far into the reserve.

That wasn't the only thing that attracted Tony to the case, though. Mark had mentioned in passing that something was "out there" and it was such a fucking X-Files line but Tony did a little research and found out that there were quite a few reported sightings of some kind larger than life humanoid thing that was typically written off as a moose or the product of inebriation. But there had been an upswing in reports occurring four and five years ago – around the time of the murder.

It was interesting, to say the least. Interesting and relatively uninvolved, given his father's health, and Tony didn't really have to offer them anything – he made sure to explicitly state that. He was going in to produce a story only, to give the case some national attention and maybe a better shot at finding Taylor's murderer. That was it.

And now, after six months, he was showing up at their house to do an official interview.

It was a quaint little thing, the kind of house he fantasized about growing up in once he realized his life wasn't normal and that the parents living in these houses actually cared about their children. A lovely little northern Victorian done up in yellow and white with a porch and rocking chairs and a cute little sign with painted birds holding up the house number in the center of the door.

He knocked and Mark was quick to answer – an older, more mature looking version of the younger brother he had seen so many times in the newspaper articles he'd read over and over again. Blond, with short cropped hair, blue eyes, classically handsome, about Tony's age. Mark had a firm handshake and a warm smile though sad given the circumstances of their meeting.

"Mr. Stark," he greeted warmly, welcoming him in. "It's so good to finally meet you."

"Please – it's Tony," he replied as he followed Mark into the house and was stopped abruptly in the foyer by Mark's hand on his shoulder as he shut the door.

"I really appreciate you coming," Mark said, in hushed tones, blue eyes trained on his. "My parents – they are obviously distraught but. Please know they are the ones who wanted to do this from the very beginning. They will cooperate with whatever you ask."

Immediately Tony began to feel uncomfortable. Usually he came in with an NDA and a line of bullshit about how he wasn't responsible for whatever they experienced. He didn't often conduct interviews like this, with people he was going to quote directly, people who had high stakes in his inquiries.

"Sure, sure," Tony agreed, trying to put Mark at ease and it seemed to work as he just smiled that trusting smile that was a little disconcerting and lead him into a formal sitting room.

It was all floral and pink and comforting sayings about family, pictures of their two sons on the walls and bookshelves, a small upright piano to the side. Both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were there, looking uncomfortable as they waited for him, and they stood when he entered, stepping forward to greet him.

Mrs. Johnson was clearly where her children got their blond from, very fair and petite, a waif of a thing even in her fifties. But she also looked nervous and older than her years and Tony felt as though he was looking at a woman who hadn't eaten since her son disappeared four years ago. Mr. Johnson was a bear of a man, dark and withdrawn, and Tony might have thought he was apathetic and just going along with the whims of his wife and his son but for the black hole his presence seemed to radiate in the room, sucking the life from anything that walked past.

"Thank you," Mrs. Johnson said as they all sat back down, the sincerity and hope in her voice alarming – and Tony wasn't frequently alarmed. "Thank you."

"Uh –" He paused and cleared his throat, looking around the room a moment and wishing this was the normal kind of walk in like a rockstar and clear a house of ghosts assignment – not a walk in feeling like a charlatan and jerk around a nice old couple's emotions. "You know this is just an interview. I'm not promising I –"

"We know," Mrs. Johnson interrupted again with a strained smile. "All we want is for people to hear this story and to think twice. We're not crazy. We know our boy was killed by something out there. It wasn't a rockslide."

Tony paused a respectful moment, rearranging himself a little in his chair as he pulled a recorder out of his pocket. "May I?"

They all nodded and then he made them give verbal consent to be recorded once the device was on.

"Although I already know most of the story from Mark, let's start from the beginning, okay?" Tony started with an encouraging smile

Mostly Mrs. Johnson did the talking as she lead Tony through the story of Taylor not coming home that morning and how they just assumed he stayed at a friend's since it was the summer and he had no other obligations. But they couldn't get ahold of him on his cell phone and by noon they still hadn't heard from him. Eventually they got in touch with his girlfriend, who said a group of them were camping together and they had a fight and she didn't see him the rest of the night, claiming she thought he went home afterward. She seemed evasive to Mrs. Johnson, though they hadn't had the greatest relationship, but she was too worried about Taylor to think much of it.

The next forty-eight hours were filled with every kind of speculation imaginable as they waited the necessary length of time before filing a missing person's report. Mrs. Johnson had attempted to get back in touch with his girlfriend but she wouldn't answer, and she became the key suspect as far as Mrs. Johnson was concerned.

Eventually the police conducted interviews with all of his friends that were camping at the time and although the girlfriend was the last person to be seen with Taylor, she had an alibi for the rest of the night. And although she accused Taylor of drunkenly trying to rape her – an allegation that Mrs. Johnson patently refused to believe – she did seem appropriately broken up about his disappearance.

And that was really all they had for two years – just an unwavering hope that one day there would be a call, a tip to the police, he would check into a hospital disoriented, or Taylor would come wandering through the door like he'd never been gone at all.

Then the body was found.

"We owe those hikers," Mr. Johnson spoke up, having been absolutely silent up until that point. "They weren't supposed to be there, but thank God they were. It's clear to me whoever put his body there knew the chances of it being found were slim."

There was a moment of silence between them, waiting to see if he had anything else he wanted to add, but Mrs. Johnson picked back up to go through the autopsy and what they felt was a sloppy police investigation of the park and the wilderness reserve.

"Sloppy how?" Tony asked, trying to get more than some canned answer they'd repeated a thousand times.

"They just didn't take it seriously at all. They acted like no one in the campground could've possibly known what happened – but who else would know? Wouldn't they be the _most_ likely to know?" Mrs. Johnson asked as Mark nodded his head along with her.

"The police didn't even require statements from everyone, just Steve Rogers – who effectively owns the park, you know," Mark added. "But Steve was at home that night. And sure, most of the employees gave statements anyway, but why didn't they require them?"

"That Banner guy didn't give a statement – Mark told you that, right?" Mr. Johnson spoke up, a vitriol in his voice that surprised Tony as they shifted their attention towards him. "He was the one who led the police and those hikers back out to where they found the body. He knew the reserve _that_ well and they didn't even require a statement from him? He should've been their number one suspect."

"Really?" Tony asked, unable to contain his shock, thinking about that relatively mild mannered man with all the books in his trailer who knew how perfectly grill a filet.

"If he knew the reserve well enough to find a missing body out in the middle of nowhere like that, then he knew it well enough to hide a body where it wouldn't be found."

Tony absorbed that information, unable to argue that point, though there was still one glaring issue. "But do you think he could've moved all those rocks by himself? I've talked to Bruce and he's not exactly a big guy."

Mr. Johnson just shrugged, fizzling out at Tony's logical objection.

"Still, he should've been interviewed," Mrs. Johnson agreed. "If there is something out there, he must know about it. Someone who works there must."

Tony felt like it was pretty damn unlikely that if someone who worked at the park thought there was a monster lurking around out there that they would report it, given Steve's positivity campaign and you know – the general suspicion for such a crackpot story.

"Well, what lead _you_ to believe there was something else out there?"

Mrs. Johnson played with her wedding ring as she spoke, clearly somewhat embarrassed by this confession.

"I didn't really think anything of it, honestly, until I went out to lunch with a friend one day a couple weeks after Taylor was found," she said. "And she was the one who mentioned it was almost like the Green Mountain Monster. And I had heard of the monster, of course, but I thought it was just something the kids made up a few years back to make their lives more exciting." She forced a sad little laugh as she studied her fingernails. "Taylor was the one who came home talking about it. Mark rolled his eyes and told him that was something only high school kids would believe. And here we are."

"The rumors about the Monster started around the time of Taylor's disappearance – right?" Tony asked, probably a leading question but he wasn't any kind of real investigator.

"They did," Mark answered. "A little before that, five or so years ago I guess? They were so popular for a while even channel five did a little community piece on it."

Tony had actually seen the embarrassing piece of 'journalism' that wasn't even as respectable as a piece he would create – really just a series of interviews with a string of local crazies depicting their rambling camping stories about sounds heard in the woods and large shadows. The ones Tony wouldn't be surprised if they were the byproduct of some kind of drug.

Suddenly Mrs. Johnson laughed. "You think – it sounds crazy." She stared out the window, refused to make eye contact. "But is it?"

"Lot of things _sound_ crazy." Tony shrugged, voice easy. "Doesn't mean they aren't true."

Mrs. Johnson turned back to him, meeting his eyes directly, hers aged with worry and self-doubt but for a moment, looking at her so openly, he saw her faith and confidence.

"Do you really think some – some monster could've done this?" Mr. Johnson asked, derision in his tone and Tony thought maybe there was more internal conflict here between the two of them than Mark had led him to believe.

"What I think is inconsequential to the truth," Tony said, turning towards him, challenging him with the self-confidence his wife apparently lacked when dealing with him. "The truth is – no singular human could've done what was done to your boy. And two humans don't keep secrets very well. You think Bruce Banner had something to do with this – and maybe he did. I won't rule it out. But that guy is not the kind of guy that gives a shit about having a friend close enough to keep his secret. Doesn't mean Taylor wasn't killed by a couple people completely unrelated to him – big group of kids, all vouching for each other? There are a lot of possibilities.

"After eight years, I know people – but I'm not a cop. I don't have formal training and I can't go around forcing people to speak to me. I think the cops dropped the ball. I think there are a lot of people you could point a finger at. But I'm a paranormal investigator. And I think it's just as likely some weird ass shit went down in those woods that we might never be able to explain. But I'm gonna try."

Mr. Johnson just nodded his head, frowning but begrudgingly accepting that, while Mrs. Johnson's face went slack, all the stress she had been harboring fading away with every word that fell from his lips until she was completely empty for the first time in years.

Tony didn't lie to clients – even clients that weren't directly paying him. There was nothing he could really tell them, nothing that he would ever be able to point to and say 'this is what happened' – it wasn't his place and it wasn't his job. But he would do his best to corroborate the existing stories of the Green Mountain Monster – even if that meant sitting all night in the woods for two weeks straight waiting to catch a glimpse of something strange. And he sure as hell was going to the site where the body was found, even if he had to beg Bruce with even more expensive steak.

Because to him, seeing Mrs. Johnson in person, seeing how trusting she was, the faith she had in him, in the idea that this monster did exist – he tried not to let clients get into his head, but this? Now? Now – it was personal. Now this investigation was interesting.


	7. Chapter 7

It had been a couple days since Bruce had last spoken to Tony. They saw each other of course, and Tony waved while Bruce tried his best to ignore him, but in that time he'd had two incidents back to back and Bruce was wrecked. It took a physical toll on him that no one could really understand. He was exhausted and jittery, like he'd just done a week long bender with a side helping of cocaine but significantly less fun.

So when he had just returned from cleaning the bathrooms and saw Tony wandering onto his property with a big basket in one hand he fought down the impulse to hide. This was seriously not what he needed right now. But instead of opening the door to his trailer and bolting inside he manned up and just turned and leaned against the metal paneling, meeting Tony's grin with a look of general disinterest.

"Hey there Boo Boo," Tony greeted, lifting the wicker basket he was carrying and swaying it a little, trying to be enticing. "Thought you looked like you might need a pick-me-up pic-a-nic basket."

"And I thought 'boss' was bad," Bruce muttered but despite his outward irritation he actually found his general anxiety easing as Tony stopped in front of him, brown eyes warm and sociable. Friendly. "You want something from me – don't you?"

"What? Bruce!" Tony admonished, laughing, but Bruce knew he was right. "Sure – I want you to have lunch with me. And, maybe one day, to take me out to the site where they found that body."

Bruce's brows furrowed and he opened the door to the trailer, took a step inside, and let the door shut in Tony's face. What the fuck kind of thing was that to ask of him? Even if – even if he hadn't killed that boy, being asked to find the body was still a horrifying experience the first time. He wasn't exactly keen to relive that, especially given the ramifications of his recent stress levels.

But on the other hand... maybe it would be better to just get it over with. Tony wasn't going to find anything out there but some rocks – if Bruce could even still find the original site. It was probably less suspicious just to agree the first time he asked rather than drag this out and make it a 'thing.'

He ran his hands back through his hair, pulling it in frustration, wanting to stomp around like a pissy little brat but managing to contain himself. Why why _why_ was this happening to him?

Bruce turned and opened the door, ready to call Tony back, but he was still standing there, smiling as the door opened, ready to talk, and Bruce kinda wanted to smack him – but he didn't.

"I guess. Just not – not today," he stipulated and Tony's smile became a little softer, a little more sympathetic.

"No, no, of course not," Tony agreed. "Whenever you feel up for it."

Bruce assessed him for a moment, finding he was actually being genuine, before stepping back and opening the door wide for him to come in. The thing was, even despite his irritation, Bruce wasn't exactly in the habit of passing over free food.

"I think you'll like what I brought," Tony said, generously changing the subject as he set the basket on the stove and lifted open one side of it. "There's that place in the next town over? Bonfatto's or whatever? Bucky told me about this one too – he knows a lot of fucking food places, doesn't he?"

Bruce realized Tony was talking a little too fast and that puzzled him but he just nodded a little and peered inside.

"I got roast beef and turkey and just had them make it however, you know," Tony continued, pulling them out of the basket in their white and green paper. "And look! I got macaroni salad and some vinegar and tomato and cucumber salad? I don't know, they told me it was good and you like that vegetable stuff, right? Oh – and these cheese stuffed cold peppers."

Bruce moved around him for plates and silverware, handing him over one as he continued his rambling spiel while opening little round, white containers. "We can split the sandwiches? Unless you are morally offended by roast beef or something."

He didn't answer, just offered Tony a plate and a fork and Tony took it, splitting the sandwiches and portioning out some of the sides on his plate haphazardly.

"There's beer and water in the fridge," Bruce offered, finally getting a chance to get a word in edgewise and Tony looked up at him, blinking, as if he had just realized he was there.

"Thanks."

Bruce could swear he saw him blush but he quickly turned away to set his plate on the table and step around him to the fridge.

The food actually smelled really good and Bruce found himself feeling thankful that he thought of him even if it was mostly because he needed something from him. He was so used to being on his own now that it was probably reflexive, the good feeling he got from someone doing something for him, even when it was mostly grounded in a selfishness – and he tried to remember that before he got too mushy about the whole thing.

Just as they were sitting down to eat though someone knocked on his door. Tony was in the middle of saying something about beer when he stopped and they looked at each other, Bruce giving an inelegant shrug because frankly, he had no idea who it could be.

He got up, swallowing his beer, and opened the door to Clint – just a ranger he shot the shit with occasionally when they saw each other – on his front door.

"Look Bruce I'm sorry to bother you – I'm not really bothering you though, am I?" Clint asked as he stepped forward, totally inviting himself in without a second thought. "It's just, you know Nat better than –" and he stopped abruptly when he realized Bruce wasn't alone.

Tony waved his fingers at him with an expression Bruce could only read as veiled irritation – which surprised and kind of disappointed him because he figured that meant Tony had intended to question him further about something instead of just share a lunch. Stupid to assume otherwise, Bruce figured, trying not to feel disappointed.

"You have someone here," Clint said stupidly and Bruce fought not to be offended by that.

"Obviously," he muttered. "Would you like to join us?"

"No, no, I ate before I came over but – hey, the more opinions the merrier, right?" And he grabbed a stool and pulled it up to the table, introducing himself to Tony with a handshake as Bruce reclaimed his own seat.

"So...?" Bruce asked after a moment, trying to prod Clint into remembering what he came over for.

"Right," he said, turning bodily towards Bruce. "Bruce," he pleaded, "you gotta help me. I need to get a date with Nat."

Bruce groaned internally and tried not to roll his eyes. Ever since Clint saw Nat in the front office he did nothing but moan about her every time they saw each other. It was ridiculous. To Bruce it was either go for it or don't, but deliberating forever wasn't getting him anywhere.

"So just ask her," he replied, taking a big bite of the sandwich so he didn't have to reply to whatever Clint came up with next but, to his surprise, Tony was the one who spoke next, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No no no, don't listen to him," Tony said, jerking a thumb in Bruce's general direction. "Why are you coming to Boo Boo here anyway?"

"Boo Boo?" Clint asked as Bruce coughed on the bite he was forced to swallow when he nearly choked to hear Tony call him that in front of Clint.

"He's not exactly smarter than your av–er–age bear," Tony continued, clueing him into the reference as he settled in to do what Bruce supposed he did best – give people totally useless but flowery and convincing advice. "Not when it comes to romance. He lives in a trailer in the woods by himself and literally just told you to 'just ask her.'"

"But... he knows Nat better than anyone," Clint argued.

"And is he dating her?" Tony asked, Clint shaking his head slowly as Tony popped a cheese stuffed pepper in his mouth and nodded enthusiastically, turning to Bruce. "These are really good."

"So some generic advice about women boiling them all down to one romantic archetype would be preferable?" Bruce asked, picking up one of his peppers and trying it. They were good. He was pretty sure he could recreate it with a little trial and error, too.

"Preferable to that shit advice," Tony replied with a laugh and Bruce scowled.

"But Nat – she doesn't screw around. She wouldn't want to play games – she'd _want_ you to just ask," Bruce argued because frankly, he _did_ know Nat best. Definitely better than Tony.

"That's fine, that's probably true, I don't know, I don't know her," Tony admitted, Clint hanging on every word between them, turning and watching the discussion evolve. "But you can't just ask a woman something like that out of the blue without laying the groundwork. You got to get her attention, romance her a bit."

Bruce lifted his eyebrows skeptically as he took a bite of sandwich, not sure he could dignify that with a response. Truly, he never attempted to romance anyone. And he hadn't really had many relationships except for a short stint with a girl at the end of high school that was a couple of awkward dates and some shitty car sex and then a few far better fucks with a guy he met in a bar that moved shortly after they met. He didn't know what Tony's experience was, but he seemed like the kind of guy who probably had quite a bit of experience given the way he looked, his general charisma, and the company he was heir to. But still, Bruce would be damned if he'd admit that women could just be lumped into one generalization and sold prepackaged romance. Nat would hate that.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked and Tony took a sip of beer, preparing himself for a speech.

"Look – romance means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, right?" Tony started, rolling the bottle with his fingers. "What works for one woman might not work for the other. Some girls like those corny little jokes and flowers left on their car, some girls want that suave and debonaire guy who's going to make everything okay when he sweeps them off their feet, some girls just want a guy to buy them a beer and chill in their pjs in front of the TV all day. I don't know this chick, I don't know what she wants. But here's the thing – it doesn't matter."

Clint let out a huff of frustration, confusion clear on his face as Bruce chuckled in the back of his throat. Tony was so full of shit.

"Look Clint – you gotta offer her what you got," Tony continued and that, at least, Bruce could agree with.

"So...?" Clint asked as Tony shoveled some macaroni salad into his mouth in the brief moment his mouth wasn't spouting nonsense.

"Sooooo," Tony said as he speared some more macaroni. "What's your thing? What do you got hot shot?"

"To offer Nat?" Clint asked, his whole face crumpling like a tin can. "Nothing."

"No," Tony argued. "Don't think of it that way. That's like – mistake numero uno. Don't think about what you think she wants. Think about what you _got_."

Clint wiped his palms on his knees and laughed a little. "I got nothing."

"With that attitude," Tony countered, clearly getting irritated – but Bruce figured when you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth you had more natural self-confidence than some poor kid like Clint.

"You're good with animals," Bruce filled in, remembering a few stories involving Clint taking some injured animal to the local wildlife rehabilitation clinic and even adopting a stray dog.

"There you go," Tony encouraged, gesturing from Bruce to Clint.

"Okay, okay," Clint said, buying himself time as he thought. "I – uh – people think I'm funny?"

"Good with animals, funny – great start," Tony coaxed as he ate. "Anyone would love that."

"I – uh – I... was on the high school archery team."

"Your high school had an archery team?" Tony asked, pausing his sandwich on the way to his mouth and raising a skeptical brow.

"Yeah, small New England town. I'm still pretty good."

"Okay, well," Tony swallowed, setting his sandwich down again. "This is a good start. This is what you have to use to your advantage."

Bruce was the skeptical one now. It was difficult for him to imagine Nat being interested in any of that. She was – well, no one knew _that_ much about her really – but she listened to ballet music in the office whenever she was alone and liked to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

"If a woman is going to fall in love with you, you want it to be _you_ , you want to show her what you're good at and you want her to fall in love with that," Tony said and suddenly Bruce found himself setting his own food down to listen. "You need to go up there, talk to her, make your jokes or whatever, tell her about your dog or – I don't know – whatever animal thing. Encourage her to get to know you and get to know _her_. Find out what she's into. Romance her interests. You don't have to be into the same stuff, you just have to be into the way each other are into your respective stuff."

Tony stopped then, as if that was all that needed to be said, and picked back up his fork. Bruce just shrugged when Clint looked at him for help and took a sip of beer.

"So... then how do I know if she's into me?" Clint finally asked, sounding totally clueless.

"Well, lover boy – you wait," Tony continued, jabbing the air towards Clint with his forkful of macaroni salad. "You wait until one day, when you're leaving, and you wave goodbye, she looks at you. She looks at you with those big, gorgeous eyes of hers, and she watches. And you turn away, head towards the door, and then when you get there, you throw a casual glance back over your shoulder. And when you do? She's still looking. Then you know. She's in love with you."

"Whoa," Clint breathed, totally mesmerized as Bruce rolled his eyes.

What was that bullshit? Nat looked up at him every time he left, it was just common courtesy. He couldn't believe that was the end of some otherwise pretty decent advice. Should've known better though – Tony was, after all, a hack.

"And you do that?" Bruce asked, offended for Clint, that he would be sold and believe such utter crap.

Tony snorted as he picked up his beer. "No – _I_ don't fall in love. I –"

"Here we go," Bruce laughed, leaning over to elbow Clint.

"No – hey, no, I don't," Tony argued, smiling but clearly frustrated. "What – am I going to shack up with some chick and take her across the country looking for ghosts like some kind of perverse version of Scooby-Doo where Fred and Daphne are actually banging each other? Nah. I don't have time for that."

He took a long sip off his beer, shaking his head. "No – that's not the advice I would give someone looking just to get laid. But this kid – you love this chick, right?"

"Well – I... I mean – _yeah_ ," Clint sputtered.

"Then you don't want Tony Stark's Patented Way to Pick up Chicks and Sleep With Them Too™ – you want her to fall _in love_ with you."

"Just ask her out on a date," Bruce said, appealing to Clint's laziness and the common sense he prayed Clint had. "This guy just told you how to make a woman fall in love when he himself doesn't even know what that word means."

"Suit yourself," Tony argued, picking up a pepper on his fork and lifting it to his mouth with a shrug. "Your funeral."

"You know what – thanks," Clint said as he stood, "but I'm sorry I came. Now I'm more confused than ever."

Both Tony and Bruce laughed – Bruce's quiet and genuine, Tony's full and robust – and Clint glared at their amusement, probably feeling like they were putting him on.

"No wonder neither of you are getting any," he mumbled as he left, Bruce still vibrating with the aftershock of his amusement.

And he looked at Tony, flushed and smiling as he picked at the food left on his plate, full but wanting to savor the end of it, and even though he was nothing but an elaborate con artist and half of what he said was bullshit, Bruce actually had to admit... he enjoyed Tony's company. And that was dangerous, really, for him, but what was that old adage about keeping your enemies closer?

Bruce leaned back in the chair, picking up his beer to finish it off, and tentatively offered – "I don't really have that luxury either."

Tony nodded as he put a last forkful of salad in his mouth. It felt good to get that off his chest and it sucked that he could relate so easily to Tony but despite his jokes, they were both loners who left their families. They both had nothing, really, and no one but themselves.

"I miss it sometimes," Tony admitted, leaning back but studying his beer bottle instead of looking at Bruce. "But at this point? I wouldn't even know what to do with that. It's just... easier."

Bruce hummed an agreement. It was definitely easier. Especially when you were a monster who lived in the woods for self preservation.

But there was also something nice about the understated silence between them, the way Tony moved around him as he did the dishes, bringing him each dish and then drying them without a word. Bruce couldn't exactly say he missed being in a relationship when he'd never really been in one, but he also couldn't deny how lonely he felt once Tony had left.


	8. Chapter 8

It had only been two days since Tony brought Bruce lunch so he was pretty shocked when Bruce pulled up by his campsite in his Jeep and stopped, leaning over the door.

"You ready to go?"

Tony blinked as he looked up from his computer at his make-shift desk that consisted of two fold out chairs and an extreme backache, figuring Bruce could only be talking about one thing.

"Right now?" he asked, locking his computer and sweeping the campsite for anything he needed to pick up as he stashed his computer under the passenger seat.

"Yeah, if that's okay." Except it didn't sound like a question and Tony wasn't going to pass up an opportunity and risk offending Bruce into never hanging out with – er, _helping_ him out again.

"Fine, fine!" Tony called as he folded down his chairs and threw them in the car too and locked it.

"Do you have different shoes?" Bruce asked, sounding hesitant. "Because we have to hike all the way up there..."

"Yeah!" he called back, unlocking his car hastily and pulling them out of the trunk while digging through a suitcase for some socks. "Should I change into pants?"

"No, you should be okay," Bruce replied, their eyes meeting for a moment as Tony leaned out of the trunk to make sure Bruce heard his question before he changed his shoes.

Then he headed down and jumped in Bruce's Jeep, greeting him with an enthusiastic smile, amused by the dorky green park ranger vest he felt the need to don for this expedition. Bruce smiled back, a little tight and a little nervous, but Tony figured that was to be expected. Reliving this couldn't be easy on him.

"I have to finish checking the campsites and then we'll go," Bruce said as he shifted into gear and Tony nodded.

"Hey – thanks," he said, totally sincere, and Bruce just tightened his lips a bit more as he scanned the sites for anything unusual.

"Kinda like a band-aid," he muttered back after a moment. "Just wanna pull it off."

Tony felt kinda like an asshole but it explained why Bruce was so eager to get him out there instead of dragging it out like he'd expected – not that he was complaining. And he supposed this was a good day for it too – the sky was clear and the heat had actually backed off, wasn't as oppressive as it had been for the past few days.

Instead of pulling into Bruce's trailer lot like he'd expected, Bruce pulled out of the camping area and onto the main road, then to a service road only meant for rangers and park staff.

"Faster this way," he explained, not even looking at Tony as he climbed out of the car to unlock a gate, drive the Jeep through, and then relock it behind them.

While Bruce was distracted Tony pulled out his cell phone, setting a GPS tracker for their hike. Just in case, of course, that he should need to get back there without Bruce's help.

"Really rolling out the red carpet for me, eh?" Tony joked as he slid his phone discreetly back into his pocket as they started slowly down a dirt path and Bruce threw him a look.

"Don't let it go to your head," Bruce replied as he pulled the Jeep off to the side. "This is a pretty steep climb for about twenty minutes before we meet up with the Blue Spruce trail. But if we started at the trailhead, it would take nearly an hour to get here. Think you can handle it?"

Tony looked at Bruce, noticing for the first time that he was actually pretty in shape, and he smiled to hide his doubt.

"Sure – as long as you don't get us lost," he covered and Bruce rolled his eyes, opening the door and climbing out.

He dug around in the back, throwing Tony a CamelBak that he slid onto his back as Bruce did the same. Bruce's was bulkier though and clearly had other supplies and while Tony thought that might be overkill he figured that came with the territory of being an official park employee.

"Look – let me know if you need help," Bruce said as they started into the tree line that pretty much immediately went into a steep incline. "You don't have to pretend to be a badass."

"Pretend?" Tony asked, laughing as he watched Bruce start going up, carefully planting his feet with each step.

Tony figured the best course of action was to try to follow Bruce's path as closely as possible and not fall too far behind. While he certainly wasn't in the best shape of his life he had a lot of natural athleticism and more than enough overconfidence when he wanted. Plus – at least coming down would be easier.

"You can use your hands, too," Bruce called back over his shoulder, glancing Tony's way as he steadied himself against a tree and Tony nodded back. "Next time I'll take you rock climbing."

Tony barked a short laugh as his feet slipped a little and he reached out for anything, managing through luck and a partially exposed tree root to steady himself. This was going to suck.

"You wanted to see me suffer," Tony accused as he righted himself, stepping forward towards the nearest tree, reaching for it as an anchor.

Bruce didn't respond though Tony was pretty damn sure he caught Bruce laughing at him.

It didn't take long before Tony gave up on trying to follow Bruce's path and simply went from tree to tree as much as possible, trying not to fall outright. He couldn't help but think that twenty minutes to the trail seemed fucking optimistic as hell – and then he realized Bruce could probably do it solo in fifteen and that he was slowing them down. The other guy didn't even seem to have broken a sweat, moving effortlessly up the mountain while Tony's hair was damp and his eyes stung. Still though – not the shittiest thing he had ever done for this job, but maybe in the top five. There were some pretty sketchy cemetery seances in his portfolio.

Tony paused to make a futile swipe at the sweat dripping into his eyes with the inside of his relatively sweaty shirt and looked up to see where Bruce was – about forty feet ahead of him up the steepest part of the climb yet but standing on the flat path at the top. That knowledge invigorated Tony and he pushed forward up the rest of the way, using rocks and roots to plant his feet and going into a full body climb, dragging himself up with his hands.

At the end, Bruce reached out for him and helped pull him up onto the path, out of breath but feeling accomplished, grinning as he stretched his arms.

"Don't do that too often," he panted and Bruce gave him a little smile that seemed pleased as he ran his hands back through his own sweaty hair.

"If you can handle that, you can handle the gravesite," Bruce replied, smile fading completely as he turned and started heading up the trail.

Tony frowned, sucking at the straw connected to the water pack as he followed his guide along the beaten down pathway up the mountain. If he had thought the climb was bad, this was going to suck more. There were questions he had to ask Bruce and he much preferred amiable, only-mildly-irritated Bruce to caustic, completely-shut-down Bruce.

"Hard to imagine a bunch of cops pulling this off," he called up, only a little winded now though Bruce set an aggressive pace along the trail.

He didn't stop at the question but Tony saw him glance back. "It sucked."

Tony laughed. At least he was being blunt instead of blowing him off completely.

"I don't know exactly where it's located – I mean, I'll find it, I know roughly, but..." Bruce paused and let Tony catch up a little so he didn't have to yell over his shoulder. "I have the most knowledge of these mountains but I couldn't find it the first day. With cops and these hikers? Like they knew anything. The pressure was really intense. And they were slow. They wanted to comb the whole fucking mountain and just..."

Bruce swallowed hard and he didn't speak again for several minutes. Tony started to fall back even, not sure he was going to continue, thinking maybe it was best to give Bruce some space. But then he slowed down again and Tony stepped up to him to rejoin him.

"I was looking for a dead body," Bruce finally said, staring hard ahead and not wavering. "It fucking sucked. I didn't want to find it. Who – who would want to find that?"

Tony gave him a moment but he stayed on his heels, watching what little body language he could gleen in the situation before asking –

"Is that why you didn't talk to the cops?"

He could tell the question derailed Bruce because there was a hitch in his step but he recovered quickly, throwing a glare over his shoulder at Tony.

"Did the Johnsons tell you that?" Bruce spat as he ran his hands back through his hair, clearly pissed, trying to rein it in and failing spectacularly. "Didn't I do enough? I almost quit!"

Tony gave him some time to cool off as Bruce rage-walked at a much quicker pace than Tony truly felt comfortable with but he sure as hell wasn't going to tell Bruce to slow down. He finally did though, letting Tony catch up – slowly, as it was, panting and with the cramp in his side becoming aggressively more persistent.

"Maybe I should've made an official statement," Bruce finally admitted, blowing out a sigh and Tony was mostly just impressed with his lung capacity. "But I was with cops being constantly interrogated for four days until we found the body of – of that kid. Fuck!"

Bruce looked at him then, really looked at him – vulnerable and open in a way Tony had never seen from him before.

"It might come as a surprise to you but I'm a pretty private person," Bruce tried to joke and Tony snorted a sympathetic laugh. "This place was crawling with police, media – it was shut down to the public once we found him but not the media, apparently. And not – not the Johnsons. I – I couldn't deal with it. I just left."

He stopped completely then, staring up at the trees, having some kind of private moment that Tony couldn't help but be selfishly grateful for so that he could rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath.

"I hit 81 and took it until it hit 75 and then I took 75 all the way until it hit the ocean. I honestly – I wasn't sure I could come back." Bruce wiped his arm across his brow and lowered his head, looking at Tony directly. "What could I say? What could I say that would bring them any peace? That's what you said – right? That I could've brought them peace?"

"I was just trying to piss you off, Bruce – that's not your responsibility," Tony replied as he straightened up, and Bruce just smiled this sad, gutted smile that kind of made it look like his face might just crumple.

"Feels like it," he replied, emotions he'd obviously buried coming to the surface. "This is my home and that boy? That boy was killed here, right on my doorstep. I failed."

Before Tony had a chance to reply at all Bruce turned his face, wiping at it again as he moved forward, effectively ending that line of questioning completely.

They followed the trail for what Tony figured had to have been a good forty five minutes, maybe an hour, in silence during which he stared at Bruce's back, contemplating the other man. His emotions obviously ran much deeper than Tony would have guessed given how voluntarily isolated he was from people. There was no real reason for him to blame himself for Taylor's death. Despite what the Johnson's might have believed, no one _had_ to know _anything_ – least of all Bruce, holed up in his little trailer. If anyone was responsible, it would have to be his completely negligent friends that let him disappear without looking for him for the rest of the night.

Eventually Bruce slowed way down, clearly looking for something or maybe just getting his bearings. He pulled out some kind of handheld GPS and consulted it before turning back towards him.

"Pretty sure this is where we get off," Bruce said as he replaced the GPS and started up the gentle incline into unmarked territory. "I haven't been up here since... you know. But – I'm hoping it won't take me long to find."

"Did you know what you were looking at when you found it?" Tony called up as he followed along, trying not to let his feet slide out from under him in the leaves and brush beneath him.

Bruce grunted an affirmation. "Yeah – you'll know. I mean, the hikers described it pretty well but it's obvious why they wanted to check it out. We knew as soon as we found it. You'll see."

They puttered around in circles as far as Tony could tell while Bruce consulted his GPS and lead them up or down or around some more trees. But then – all of a sudden – they nearly walked right into it.

The makeshift gravesite was exactly as he'd imagined it from the few descriptions he'd received – a crudely fashioned oval of rock large enough for a human body to be laid inside. Certainly nothing like what Tony figured a rock slide would look like. The boulders that made up the perimeter of it varied from maybe three feet across all the way to six or seven, but all of them looked larger than even two humans could move. Tony assumed the two sitting outside of the structure were those that had originally been resting on the body, "burying" it, but he didn't ask.

Instead, he watched as Bruce paled and turned away, practically falling into a tree as he leaned bodily against it, trying to recover. The smell was unbelievable but Tony braced himself against it, surveying the slaughter that spread itself across what he could only describe as a dump site.

Two deer lay there, at different rates of decomposition, one appearing freshly killed and the other a hulking hunk of meat rotting off the bones. There was also what appeared to be a coyote or two, maybe a wolf, and a dog? Tony wasn't completely sure but he also wasn't too keen on getting a much closer look. It didn't really matter anyway – the fact was, whatever was out here that built that grave, that moved those boulders and killed Taylor Johnson? It was _still_ out here.

Excitement shot through Tony like a spark and he grinned as he pulled out his phone and snapped some pictures, totally absorbed by the scene. The freshest kill was clearly killed in the same manner described by autopsy reports – there was no visible wounding, no bite marks or gashes or anything else. As far as Tony could tell it was just a broken neck, maybe it's hind legs had been broken too, but no other obvious injury.

The other kills were too old to properly diagnose but Tony didn't care. What else, or even who else, would come back to this site and repeatedly drop animals? Maybe if it hadn't been so difficult to access Tony could see some kids enjoying a twisted prank but there was no pay off for that. There was no obvious motivation for anyone other than the original killer.

Once Tony was satisfied with his documentation he cast his eyes back around to Bruce, who wasn't easily spotted, having moved further away and nearly out of the range of Tony's vision, but his vest had reflective orange stripping that stood out among the vibrant green and brown of their surroundings. Tony approached cautiously, sure that Bruce wasn't going to understand his professional curiosity and excitement over their findings.

Bruce was sitting down, his head tucked between his knees, fingers laced together over his neck, breathing heavily and Tony sat down next to him, unsure whether announcing his presence would help or not. But eventually Bruce sighed and sat up, dropping his hands between his legs.

"What the fuck."

Tony scratched at the back of his neck and shrugged, pretty sure that wasn't a question.

"It could kill someone else," Bruce whispered, so soft Tony almost missed it, and he stared at him, trying to figure out if he knew something or not.

"Is there something out here?" Tony asked quietly, looking away, through the trees for a moment before looking back at Bruce.

Bruce just ran his hand back through his hair, grabbing at it as he looked at him, his face a painfully unraveled mess. "There must be – right?"

Tony nodded and looked back out at the trees. They seemed ominous now that they were holding on to a secret. Even if it wasn't a monster or whatever else anyone wanted to believe – _something_ was out here. There had to be.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Sorry everyone - this is literally the worst I've ever done at keeping up with a fic schedule but I swear I'm trying. -_-! My son got hit by a car last week and I obviously just didn't have it in me to deal with updating a fan fic. And we have to go out of town this weekend so ugh it's a mess so I'm posting today and will start following my Friday update schedule again next week. Thanks for your patience!

* * *

It was difficult not to grin at Tony's beginner purchases – a windbreaker style pair of pants and jacket, noisy and annoying and brightly colored. There was no game hunting in the Green Mountain Wilderness Reserve and therefore no real need for flashy colors but Bruce figured it was better than trying to outfit him in mishmash of his own clothes.

On their way back down the mountain after the horrifying discovery they'd made Tony eventually couldn't keep quiet any longer and talked about what this meant to him, his plans – one of which was to go out at night and see if he could get a glimpse of this 'thing' for himself. After a while Bruce begrudgingly expressed his interest in accompanying Tony – strictly to help him out, of course. Not out of self-preservation, oh no. But it made sense, didn't it? If he was with Tony then Tony would never be able to physically see 'The Green Mountain Monster' – also unfortunately known as Bruce Bruce banner – at all.

So here they were, the sun fading, Bruce's rounds and cleaning done, getting ready to trek up into the mountains to sit in the woods for a few hours in the dark to find absolutely nothing.

"You don't have any equipment...?" Bruce asked cautiously as he slung a pack across his shoulders with water and flashlights and a few other survival essentials he didn't think they'd need but then he was always cautious.

"Like?" Tony asked, raising a brow with a grin.

Bruce supposed he'd never shown particular interest in Tony's work before and that maybe showing any was a mistake.

"You know – whatever they show in the movies. Those things you guys use – that pick up ghosts and shit," he finished lamely.

"What – like an EMF meter?" Tony asked with a chuckle and Bruce shrugged – like he knew? "Equipment used to pick up ghosts isn't really going to help us with big foot."

"Makes sense," Bruce conceded, ready to back quickly out of the conversation he'd started. "Ready?"

"After you," Tony replied, holding out his hand to follow.

There was an easier trail they could take that started close to his trailer that took them high up into the mountain without the difficulty getting to the monster's brutal graveyard. Tony had assured him they didn't need to get there, just up in the general area, sure that the monster roamed the whole mountainside. He wasn't wrong, but Bruce offered no input.

"You know – there are some things that are too hokey even for me," Tony continued as they moved into the treeline Bruce had walked out of naked so many times before.

Bruce snorted, wondering what the hell that could possibly mean as he stepped onto the path in the dying light.

"EMF meters, full spectrum camcorders, things like that?" Tony said. "I mean, they are useful, I guess, to some degree. But if you can't experience it with one of your five senses – what's the point in worrying about it? I prefer to alleviate people's fears rather than offer more speculation. Besides – I consider myself a scientist."

That Bruce couldn't help but laugh at, not saying anything but sure that Tony could tell how derisive it was. He liked Tony, sure, and maybe Tony did try to do something good for people, but he certainly wasn't a 'scientist.'

"I all but have an engineering degree from MIT you know," Tony replied, clearly defensive. "Whatever you think – I'm not an idiot."

Bruce felt suitably shamed and he looked back at Tony, face shadowy beneath the trees but his large eyes were luminous. And he could see clearly in them his need to gain Bruce's respect.

"I didn't know that," Bruce capitulated, turning back to the path.

"I don't broadcast it," Tony continued. "I didn't graduate. Dad and I... We weren't on great terms anyway, especially when I chose to pursue engineering. But when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's – very hush hush, you know – Obie just... God, he made my life such _hell_. He wanted me to forfeit my shares of SI, he wanted me to declare my intent not to be involved, he was always calling me and threatening me, always harrassing my lawyers and so I just left, you know? Went where he couldn't follow. It bought me some time, anyway."

Tony fell silent. Bruce didn't really understand – didn't know who Obie was or any of the details of his involvement in his father's business, though he figured Tony had to have some kind of interest in it, despite his seeming lack of involvement. And Bruce didn't really ask. But there was _something_ that had him curious.

"So how did you get from engineering to... this?"

Tony chuckled as Bruce turned on one of the flashlights, illuminating their path in the darkness.

"Tarot cards."

Bruce shook his head, listening to the sound of Tony's jaunty self-confident walk and the rustle of the plastic-y rain material his pants were made out of.

"You would be surprised how many people are into mysticism down there in Boston," Tony said as he drew closer to Bruce's back. "If there was one thing I inherited from my dad – and lord knows I hope there was only one – it's charisma and the art of bullshit. Don't think I don't know it!"

Bruce laughed but it as amiable and Tony punched him lightly in the back, laughing too.

"Probably should've gone into politics like he wanted but I digress. I watched some street peddler doing a career path spread in the middle of a common area and I thought – fuck, I could do that. You have to be able to read people, sure, but you know, I'm pretty good at that. So I bought a deck and started doing it for my friends."

"Just like that?" Bruce asked and Tony hummed his agreement.

"Just like that." There was a moment of silence as Tony reminisced and he huffed out another laugh at the memory. "I was really good with them – it was easy because I knew what they wanted to hear. But they couldn't shut up about it and soon I had students coming to me asking about it, telling me they wanted me to 'read their future' and whatever so I did it, of course. But I charged. Dad always said that the only reason a successful person was successful was because they knew that if you had something people wanted you damn well better charge for it."

Bruce nodded along with the story. "Suppose that's true," he murmured.

"Well, it worked pretty well for me," Tony agreed. "But you know – I played the part pretty well too. I wore all this earthy shit, like crystal necklaces and chakra bracelets and what not. I even wore eyeliner, you know, really played up that whole mysticism thing. My professors weren't thrilled, I can tell you that. I think they saw a successful student going down the tubes. But soon I had people asking me to get them that shit too – crystals and healing stones and all that bullshit. So I did. Ordered it in bulk, did up some really hippy-dippy packaging with kraft paper boxes and raffia tape then charged three times the cost."

"Jesus," Bruce said, vaguely impressed. He sure as hell wasn't charismatic enough to pull something like that off but Tony was nothing if not ambitious. And certainly intelligent enough. Bruce suddenly felt like he _had_ underestimated him – and he regretted it.

"Well, eventually, someone asked me about a seance," Tony sighed and Bruce glanced back over his shoulder, though he could barely see him, just that he was looking down, following the beam of the flashlight. "Then I knew I really had something, you know? And I had to consider what I was going to do with it."

For a moment they walked in silence but Tony continued, a bit more soft than before. "It's one thing to overcharge people for some pretty rocks, but these people wanted me to help them grieve. That's a very different thing. I realized then that I couldn't profit off of other people's pain."

"And you think going along with crazy fantasies helps?" Bruce asked, trying not to sound shitty as he was really curious how he could justify that.

"Well, it's like I said before – people are going to believe whatever they want to believe," Tony answered. "I just try to help them feel better about the things they can't explain."

Bruce tried not to reply with a sarcastic comment – it was clear that Tony was being sincere and that he really believed in his intent. Sarcasm just came easily and it guarded him from the truth. The truth that his problem wasn't really Tony or what he did. His problem was that he _was_ a monster and nothing could make him feel better about that – certainly not someone digging through his life looking for him. Any rapport they developed was a lie because Tony would gladly take a million pictures of him and post them all over the internet. That was what was best for the Johnsons, wasn't it? His exposure?

And not for the first time he thought – maybe that was what was best for him too. Even if it meant that he would be locked in a lab somewhere, a perpetual experiment until he died of old age. He had no functional relationship with anyone, no impact on anyone's life. Self-preservation was strong but it was only a matter of time, wasn't it? Before he would hurt someone else?

So many times he thought of turning himself in over the past few years... but what would he say? I'm the Green Mountain Monster and I strangled that boy with hands the size of his head and super strength? Maybe Tony was a blessing in disguise. Maybe he should stop thwarting him and let him have his discovery.

Bruce thought he was going to be allowed to stew in his own dark thoughts but he forgot his companion hovering over his shoulder, curious and unable to stop himself from conversation. And Bruce supposed he understood, opening up like that leaves you vulnerable and he was never really very good at picking up on that and alleviating another person's discomfort – part of being alone so long. But still he ground his teeth together when he heard the question, irritated by its necessity.

"So how did you end up here?"

"After graduating high school I spent a useless year at community college," he started with a sigh. Immediately all those awful memories of how lonely and terrifying it was came welling up from within him and he had to take a breath to maintain his composure.

Betty had gone off to Berkeley and he had no real interest in college but he went anyway because he felt like that was what he was supposed to do, what was expected of him. But the classes he went to were boring and he spent most nights sleeping in his car, constantly worried that he'd transform in his dorm room and destroy it, be forced to run away forever. Maybe if he'd had the opportunity to get to know someone, make friends, things would've been different. But he didn't have that luxury.

"It really wasn't my thing but I got a summer job at a national park a couple hours south of here. That I really liked."

And that was true. He got to live out where he wasn't a threat to anyone, got to know a couple of the other guys and spent some time partying after hours, drinking local moonshine underage and having a more normal human experience than he'd ever gotten a chance to have before.

"I didn't really want to go back to school so I hopped around different parks for a while until this job opened up. Been here ever since." He shrugged, flashlight beam bouncing across the path.

"Short and sweet," Tony answered.

"Well I'm not heir to a fortune fifty company," Bruce pointed out. "Nor do I have the illustrious title of paranormal investigator. Not everyone's life is that interesting."

"I don't believe that," Tony replied and Bruce could hear the amusement in his voice. "Everyone I meet is interesting."

"No," Bruce answered. "You're just interested in everyone you meet. There's a difference."

Tony chuckled. "I guess. I _am_ interested in you."

Bruce rolled his eyes, trying to dispel the cloying tendrils of an unintended threat. "That does not make me interesting."

They continued on in companionable silence until they were deep into the forest and Bruce led them up a relatively easy incline. The trees were thick here, easier growth – spruce and pine and maple and ash. Bruce loved this particular section of woods and came up here often by himself. It was... friendly, somehow, comforting. He couldn't really explain it but it made him feel safe. Probably some left over memory from the monster rolling around in his subconscious – but he tried not to think about it.

"Is this okay?" Bruce asked as they came upon a fallen tree and Tony nodded his approval. "I don't really know your intention."

Tony sat down with his back to the tree, leaning against it, and as Bruce stared he waved at the flashlight and patted the ground next to him.

"Turn off that light and come here."

Bruce did as he was told, sitting down next to him, resting the flashlight within easy access between his legs. The forest seemed very black to his dilated eyes, but he knew it would come to him – though not like it usually looked at night, with his enhanced senses.

"This is it," he murmured, looking around. "Now we sit quietly and wait. Listen."

So Bruce listened to the shudder of leaves in the light breeze, the distant howl of a wolf, the scamper of little feet through the underbrush. It wasn't until they were there that he realized how personal it was to have brought Tony here, to his woodland sanctuary, and for some reason that didn't feel as wrong as he thought it should.

"This is what you do?" he whispered to Tony and Tony turned towards him.

Even in the dim moonlight that hardly filtered through the trees he could see his face now. Smooth and pale, eyes catching the moonlight, so handsome and it was clear to Bruce why people liked him, why people wanted to trust him. There was a catch in his throat that made him want to confess everything but... that was it. Just a catch and he swallowed. Tony was not here to be his friend.

"Yup," he whispered back with a grin. "Sit and wait and hope I get the opportunity to see something strange."

Bruce grunted and removed his eyes, stared up at the little glimpse he got of the stars. Maybe a microcosm of his whole life, there – just a glimpse at the stars. But then that was a ridiculous thought. People were not stars no more than Tony was his friend.

"Bit more like my job than you might want to admit," he murmured at the sky and heard Tony chuckle in the back of his throat.

"I think you're right, there, my friend."

And though he knew it was a lie – they weren't friends, they could never be friends, no one could be Bruce's friend – in the cover of darkness, Bruce couldn't help but smile.


	10. Chapter 10

Tony swiped at the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand, glad to have the path back under him. Certainly this had been easier with Bruce, it took him a long time to find the grave site by himself, but then Bruce was precisely why he had to come up here alone.

It was clear after their first stake out together that there was no way he was going to be able to stop himself from talking to the other man. He tried, he really did, but he ended up talking to him about nothing in hushed whispers and little chuckles long into the night. Tony hadn't lied – Bruce _did_ interest him, in ways that weren't wholly innocent, either. But that was easier to ignore. It was impossible, illogical, and it clearly went straight over Bruce's guileless little head.

So instead Tony retrofitted some of his video equipment so that it was motion sensitive and he waited until payday when Bruce typically went to town for a few hours and made his way back up to the grave site.

The work was shitty and exhausting. Hauling all those cameras up there? It sucked. He didn't have the ability to get back to where Bruce had started them off the first time and so he had to go the long way up the whole trail from the beginning. Locating the site was difficult with his imprecise cell phone GPS and then when he finally managed to find the site he had to climb a bunch of trees and secure the equipment and make sure it was all working. And _then_ he had to hike back.

But this, he thought, it made more sense anyway. Clearly the creature – or person, but at this point Tony thought of it as a creature – came back to this site to dump it's kills. Therefore it was only a matter of time before the cameras had to pick up something. There had been no fresh kills when Tony eventually found the site, but as he had assessed before they were clearly killed over a period of time and so he figured all he had to do was wait.

And he felt pretty damn accomplished when he found his way back to the trail, chugging some celebratory water and walking along faster now that he was done. There were very few moments worth celebrating in his life recently – this stupid little task, he would relish.

Of course as the path started evening out and his triumph reached its peak, his phone buzzed and he glanced at the text from Rhodey, trying not to be irritated. He was doing him a favor, texting him status updates every few days, but fuck if he didn't want to deal with this now.

 _Hope you're in the area. Looks bad._

Tony sighed and opened a reply.

 _Been saying that for two months. Old bastard's probably immortal._ Then he thought for a minute and sent another to reassure him. _Only a few hours outside NY._

Despite how it might have seemed, part of Tony wanted to see his father before he died. The man was cruel, calculating, and a drunk. He – discreetly, of course, like everything – hit his mother, tore down Tony at every opportunity, made most of his life hell with boarding schools and parading him around like a show pony when he did manage to step foot in his own house but...

He also made sure to leave him his controlling shares of SI – his true baby, the thing he loved most in the world. His father had trusted him enough for that and part of him? Well... Part of him wanted to say goodbye, get that fanciful idea of closure that was likely to be no more than a cold shoulder and a 'how the fuck could you?' Because Tony hadn't talked to him in over five years except through lawyers – and he was bound to be pissed. Maybe it was better just to keep the hatchet buried and let the dogs sleep or whatever.

 _Good._ Rhodey replied, a second message coming in quickly. _This time it's serious. Moved him to a hospital. Stane has the whole floor flanked by his men. Shit's crazy._

 _JFC._ It was all Tony could think of to say.

Obie was... Obie was crazy, honestly, or at least seriously messed up, and Tony had no idea where his involvement in his family and their business began and he didn't think it ended. As a child, Obie had been at all of his dad's parties, visited over frequently by himself, had dinner, Tony even called him 'uncle.' But several times his mother had warned him in thinly veiled words not to trust him and then his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and his mother was dead and Obie was calling him up demanding he forfeit his right to SI and driving down to his dorm to threaten him with a gun.

He swallowed hard at the memory, walking faster as if he had any control over his own destiny. But when it came to Obie, he honestly wasn't sure he did.

 _Hope you know what you're doing bud._

Tony was just about to reply with a joke about it being okay because he knew a cop but it was like the devil himself heard his name because for the first time in years, Obie was calling him.

The nervousness Tony felt was embarrassing and he almost didn't answer because what was there to say? Obie had to know he was deliberately holding out on him – he wasn't an idiot. But then Tony wasn't one to back down from a confrontation, especially when he'd lived how many years under the direct threat of the other man. He was an adult now, and he was anxious to prove it.

"Hello?"

"Hey there, Champ."

The rough warm gravel of his voice sent a pang of nostalgia running through Tony's chest. 'Champ' was his little pet name for Tony, the affectionate gesture that his father would never show him. To use it now felt cheap and fake, but the emotional response Tony experienced was undeniable. He wished he could snuff it out under his shoe like a cigarette.

"Cut the crap. Why the hell are you calling me?" he asked, voice hard and uncompromising, trying to set the tone early – but Obie just laughed indulgently at him, making him feel three feet tall again.

"I'm calling to get you to give up this ridiculous feud with your father and come see him before he pases."

Tony scoffed. "You know full well why I won't come back until the will is ready to be read and it has nothing to do with him."

There was an incredulous laugh from the other end of the line. "You're not talking about _me_ are you, Champ?"

"Come _on_ ," Tony huffed, pounding his feet along the path, passing a couple without even seeing them. The guy had threatened to kill him. He held a gun against his head and told him that the trigger was inevitable if he kept screwing around. What the fuck did he expect?

"You come on," Obie replied, trying to keep up that amiable facade, booming voice and all. "That was years ago and you have no interest in the business any more."

There it was. Tony's blood felt hot and he could hear it rushing in his ears so loud he wasn't sure he would be able to hear anything else if he didn't stop and take a moment to compose himself. All these years and Obie left him alone because why? Because he thought he had run away from his father and the business and all of his responsibility? Because he thought it was only a matter of time before he could gain full control of SI? That was his _birthright_ and Tony would be damned if the last five years of estrangement meant nothing.

"Fuck you. Just – Fuck. You," he growled into the phone, feeling his blood pressure rising with every word that left his lips. "I followed every word of my father's will to the _letter_. I haven't spent a single cent of his, I haven't tried to claim anything, I haven't even touched an account that had been set aside for me since my birth. If you think there is _anything_ you can do to stop me from claiming what is rightfully mine then I have news for you – you're _wrong_."

"Don't be like that, Tony," Obie warned, all joviality completely gone, voice flat and unamused. It still had the power to make Tony shirk but he wasn't a kid any more. They were talking about the future of his father's company, a company that Tony had watched Obie do terrible things to as his father deteriorated by his side. He'd be damned if he just handed over controlling interest to that man.

"What are you going to do?" Tony called his bluff. "You have no idea where I am and I'm sure as hell not going to get close enough to you to give you the chance to touch me."

"You think I haven't been following you, mister 'paranormal investigator?'" Obie asked, now outright menacing. "Please – you have never been able to keep your mouth shut long enough to hide anywhere."

"Whatever," Tony blew it off, knowing he had to be bluffing because Tony never left a paper trail until he was long gone but even if Obie wasn't full of shit it didn't matter. "Dad'll be dead long before you find me."

"Well," Obie replied, seeming as self-assured as he always did. "We'll see about that."

And then the line went dead and Tony fought the urge to hurl the phone against the nearest tree. He knew Obie shouldn't be able to trace his phone and even if he could trace Rhodey's, a few hours outside of NY could be anywhere for all Obie knew. There was no way he was going to find him. He was safe here. He was safe.

His breathing was heavy and he looked around, trying to calm himself down and convince himself that no one was going to pop out from behind the nearest tree and off him. It didn't help much to realize there were actually quite a few other hikers around him now and he could almost see to the parking lot through the trees. He had no idea he was this close to the end and for an embarrassed moment wondered if anyone heard anything compromising. But quickly his anger returned and it didn't matter. Who _the fuck_ was Obie to threaten him like that?

Tony threw his backpack into the car and slammed the door after him, punching at the steering wheel with his palms. He knew, he _knew_ that returning had been a bad idea, that Obie would do something, that he hadn't just let him go after all those threats – but it was another thing entirely to have the confirmation straight from Obie's mouth. Obie had been nearly a father to him, going to his peewee baseball games and sneaking him a sip of scotch when his mother left the room and kissing the top of his head as Tony hugged him before bed.

Hurt and angry he headed to Bruce's trailer with no idea what he was going to say, just needing to vent to someone. He considered calling Rhodey, but he would just worry and insist on making him return home now – but Rhodey was too close and he knew too much. Bruce wouldn't say anything, just listen and nod and let him have his moment.

He was glad to see Bruce's Jeep back in the driveway and he got out, knocking on the door, shoulders hunched and defensive. When he saw Bruce's face... A wash of emotions hit him hard but more than anything he just felt relief. Bruce was looking at him with those pretty doe eyes of his and somehow that made it seem like things were going to be okay.

"What's wrong?" he asked before Tony had a chance to say anything, opening the door wide, genuine concern written all over his face.

"Fucking Obie!" Tony tried not to shout but it was hard, clenching his fists as he turned towards Bruce. "He called me – it's been five years and he _called_ me. And do you know why? Because he wants me to forfeit my majority share of SI! I mean I'm sure he would pay me but – NO. fuck him. _Fuck_ him!"

"I thought you didn't want to be involved?" Bruce's question was quiet, not trying to rile him but trying to understand and although it made Tony throw his hands up in the air in frustration, it _was_ a fair question.

"Not to play pawn to my father and him, no," Tony tried to explain, voice straining. "But as majority shareholder and owner? I – I have an obligation to shut him down. Don't I?"

"Do you?" Bruce asked patiently, stepping to the cabinet to take out a second cup and set it on the table next to his and the steaming teapot.

Tony was surprised to find that the anger and vitriol seemed to fade from him just standing in the trailer, listening to Bruce's careful questions. He sure as hell didn't feel like drinking tea or considering anything but fucking over Obie as hard as he could and yet he sat down at the table and took the tea offered to him without complaint.

"I guess I can't really prove it, not yet," Tony started slowly, staring into the cup, "but I'm sure when I got in there, took a look at the records and books, interviewed people... He's been smuggling heroin out of SI's Chinese operation and selling it here for years now. I know it."

"Shit," Bruce breathed as he lifted the cup to his lips and Tony could feel his eyes on him.

Tony's shoulders slumped. "Yeah." He thumbed at his jaw, still not looking up at Bruce. "I caught him with it once, handing it off. He acted like I was just a stupid kid, like I didn't know what it was." Tony laughed a little, sarcastic and mean. "I'd been going to boarding schools for the rich forever – like I didn't know what every kind of drug imaginable looked like. Tried a lot of them too. But he'd always treated me like a little kid."

Bruce didn't say anything, Tony just sighed and looked off to the side, embarrassed to meet Bruce's eyes, emotional and hurt and afraid it would show. "I used to like it, you know? Being treated like a kid by him. My dad always treated me like an adult, expected me to know how to act, not to make any mistakes – ever. But it never stopped, you know? He fucking –" Tony swallowed, feeling the anger smoldering in his gut once more "– he fucking called me 'Champ.' He was trying to belittle me but it kinda just ruined it. You know?"

He looked up then. Bruce looked down a little, like it was too much for him, and hummed his understanding but Tony wasn't really sure. It didn't matter but... He was just restless and angry and maybe it didn't make sense but it was a shitty way to try to manipulate him. Not that, you know, potentially killing him was any better but really – the whole thing was shitty.

"I just feel like – he doesn't deserve SI. I – maybe I can do something, you know? I don't know what," Tony said, voicing thoughts he'd never even fully fleshed out before, still cautious because there was the very real possibility that Obie would do something to take it from him. "Stop the drug smuggling, bring jobs back to the US, maybe, or –"

Bruce's phone rang mid sentence and he shot Tony an apologetic look as he glanced at the screen, standing. "I'm sorry I have to take this."

Tony waved it away easily as Bruce answered and stepped into the bedroom to afford himself some privacy. And maybe under normal circumstances Tony would have tried to eavesdrop. It _was_ kind of his MO. But today he was too lost in thought, letting the heat of the cup in his hands comfort him in his confusion.

Though Tony wasn't sure how much time had passed when Bruce walked back in he looked like he had aged ten years and he just stood there, looking at him, holding his phone, like he was lost and he wasn't sure where he was or what he should do next. It was incredibly disconcerting.

"Everything okay?" Tony finally asked, feeling like he had to say something, get some kind of response from his lifeless friend.

"It's my sister," Bruce said, voice sounding like it was coming from a million miles away. "She was in an accident."


	11. Chapter 11

"It's my sister," Bruce said, voice sounding hollow and distant even to him but then he felt like he wasn't even there, his brain in a fog. "She was in an accident."

"Is she okay?"

It took Bruce a minute to even process the question. Betty was – Betty was everything to him and she was hurt now. He didn't do it – but she was still hurt.

"I don't know."

"Is she at a hospital?" Tony asked and Bruce – he wanted to cry. He wanted to ask Tony to stop talking because he couldn't think – he couldn't think and he didn't have the answers – but he couldn't. It was easier to just parrot responses.

"Saint Agnes."

Tony stood then and it felt like the whole world reverberated with it – it was too fast. It made his head hurt.

"Well let's go!"

Tony was looking at him like it couldn't be more obvious, like he couldn't understand what he was waiting for, but Bruce's feet felt like they were rooted to the ground. Go? Go where? To the hospital? That – it made sense, right? That was what people did?

The brief conversation he'd had with Betty's husband gave him no indication whether he should or shouldn't go. Just that there was an accident with a semi-truck. She was in surgery at Saint Agnes. It was critical. The words themselves felt so cold and unreal, like they didn't mean anything alone but together they were cruel and terrible. But that was all he said. And that was enough, more than Bruce wanted to hear. He didn't ask any questions.

But now he was stuck with a decision he was incapable of making on his own. He hadn't seen her for years – she didn't even know that he lived only a little more than an hour away. He could never 'just go.' Not like that. And now he would? This would – it would change everything. He should really think about this but...

Tony was looking at him with expectant eyes, like he couldn't figure out what the fuck was wrong with him, why they weren't headed towards the door. And he – he just couldn't think. What had seemed so important, the whole crux of the life he'd built, the overriding idea that he would hurt those he loved, that _he_ was the dangerous thing in Betty's life was falling apart in his hands and he just...

He moved forward, because it was easier. He moved forward, because it's what Tony expected him to do. He moved forward, because he couldn't move back into the place where Betty was safe again.

"Are you okay to drive?" Tony asked cautiously as Bruce picked up his keys and he nodded, the way into the city easy as the last commuters rushed out.

They climbed into the Jeep together and Bruce couldn't tell you what was on the radio or if Tony said anything at all for the first half hour. But eventually his brain came back to him as the idea of it settled and finally Tony turned down the radio, getting his attention.

"Do you know – did the accident involve a semi?" Tony asked carefully and Bruce glanced over – saw that he was holding his phone, saw the worry written all over his face – and looked away.

"Yeah," he swallowed, afraid of what Tony was going to say.

"It was bad," he said quietly, looking back down at his phone. "Apparently the semi just took a hard left across all the lanes of traffic? Driver must've had a stroke or something, it doesn't say, but there were several fatalities and countless injuries. There was a pile up – more than forty cars were involved."

Bruce's heart sunk with every word, his brain bringing up a mental picture of the scene – cars crumpled and bent against one another but also a flash of Betty's mangled body as featured in his nightmares since his teens, dangling between huge fingers. He felt sick to his stomach but it wasn't him – it wasn't him. And somehow that made it worse.

"I'm sorry," Tony offered after a moment but Bruce didn't know what to say.

Tony was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the ride, which Bruce was thankful for. When they hit the city there was a massive slowdown as they were still trying to clear wreckage from the road even though it had been hours.

Finally Bruce spoke, anxiety overwhelming him the closer he got to the hospital. He was about to expose the fact that he lived less than two hours away after keeping his life private for years and he had no idea if that was the right decision or not but he was doing it now.

"I don't know what to expect."

"I know, it's okay," Tony offered and Bruce shook his head because Tony didn't understand.

"She'll probably still be in surgery, it could be hours, so I'm going to leave you the keys," Bruce said and Tony nodded, opening his mouth to speak but Bruce kept going. "But her husband – my brother-in-law – he might not let me back there."

"I've got family problems but at least Obie asked _me_ to come home," Tony teased, trying to lighten the mood but even Bruce, wrapped in his own worries as he was, caught the waver in his voice.

"I haven't seen her since the wedding, four years ago," Bruce confessed, saying the words out loud seeming to amplify their gravity. He had never told anyone that before. Almost no one even knew that he had a sister.

"Can I ask why?" Tony said after a minute and Bruce scrambled for something to say that wasn't the truth but that also wouldn't arouse suspicion.

"Betty, she... I'm adopted," he started, gripping the steering wheel tight. "I'm not. It's hard to explain. I just – I never wanted to aggravate her life any more than I already had."

Tony didn't say anything at first and Bruce didn't know how believable an evasion that was.

"We can turn around, you know," Tony said, sympathetic. "If you want."

"It's okay," Bruce answered honestly. "Maybe I made a mistake."

Because if Betty was hurt now, and it wasn't by his hand, why had he avoided seeing her for so long?

He pulled into the hospital garage near the emergency wing, at least according to the signs. Bruce had never been to this hospital before but it was the largest in the area and he knew Jude had been born there. He had driven by the maternity wing after he was born, remembering how badly he wanted to go in and wishing even more now than ever that he had just sucked it up, gotten over himself, and gone in.

They traded phone numbers and Bruce handed Tony the keys, his brain not functioning well enough to make up something to say. Tony though offered a hesitant "good luck" and Bruce just nodded before he turned towards the stairwell.

He glanced back over his shoulder, saw the light of Tony's cellphone shining on his face as he looked down, and for a moment Bruce wanted to go back, take back his keys, get back in the Jeep and go back to his trailer, hidden in the mountains and safe. But it was over, he couldn't live in that lie any more, and he turned back towards the door to the stairwell.

The hospital was a disconcerting labyrinth of tile hallways and bright lights and it took Bruce entirely too long to find the waiting area for emergency surgery. And when he walked in at first he didn't see them – he had only met Leonard once so he wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for. Betty's parents though? He knew what they looked like.

They all seemed to notice each other at once and it seemed like a pretty big fucking oversight not to have considered that his adoptive parents would be there. That added a surprisingly complex layer of guilt as Bruce stared at the family that had taken him in, that was supposed to be "his." It seemed suddenly clear now that yes, they had taken him in – but he had turned away from them.

"Bruce?" his adoptive mother Karen asked as she stood, looking as though she had just seen an apparition. "How are you here?"

"Leonard called me," Bruce explained, stepping forward slowly, bypassing her actual question as she moved to embrace him.

"But how are you here?" she asked again, more quietly, and there were still tears in her red rimmed eyes and she wasn't his mother, not really, but... She held him after the nightmares of his own mother's murder and she clothed him and she fed him and she treated him like her own son. She deserved the truth.

"I work, and live, at Green Mountain and I..." He didn't know what to say. He could see over her shoulder that both Leonard and Thad looked pissed but Karen just lay her head back on his chest, oblivious.

"I'm so glad to see you, Bruce," she murmured against him, not moving, and he thought she might be crying again. "I'm so glad you came. Betty needs all of us."

Thad however just shook his head with this disappointed glare and then he got the cold shoulder. This man literally carried him, covered in blood, from the wreckage of his former home into his life and Bruce never felt he could return the favor for that sacrifice.

Then Leonard was standing and motioning to him and Bruce could feel the eyes of the other people in the room on them, trying to figure out what was going on, and he hated it, he hated that many eyes on him. Leonard didn't say anything but Bruce understood he was meant to follow him into the hall and so he gave Karen a look that was a damn lot more confident than he really felt and followed his brother-in-law out. He had stepped off to the side where they wouldn't really be in the way or visible through the doorway before turning on him.

"What the _fuck_?"

Bruce was completely taken aback by the intensity of the question and the hurt in his eyes and he just stood there like a deer in headlights, unsure what to say.

"You've lived this close to us and you couldn't come see her once?" he continued, not giving Bruce much room to say anything even if he could've formed the words. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how many times she thought about offering you a plane ticket but didn't because she was scared it would wound your pride? How many times I've had to hear her say 'I wish Bruce were here?' You've never even met your nephew. And now you think you have the right to show up here?"

It wasn't like he was naive enough to believe no one was going to confront him but it felt a hell of a. lot worse than he anticipated. Bruce couldn't even look at him, he just had to look away. There was an uncomfortable silence as Leonard waited for a response that wasn't coming.

"Well, you _don't_ ," Leonard finished for him, voice weakening as he ran out of venom and bottomed out into disappointment. "You don't."

"I know," Bruce replied at last, studying the flat green of the wall where it met the speckled cream of the floor. "I'm sorry. But – what was I supposed to do?"

Leonard exhaled a hard sigh and Bruce watched his feet move up the hall and then come back down again and when his feet were fully planted back in Bruce's frame of vision he cautiously looked up.

"I know – it's bad," Leonard offered, seeming to crumple now that his anger had burnt out. "They came out to brief me on the surgery – I couldn't even tell you everything that's wrong. I... Her car was caught between the semi and the car behind her. Crumpled. They think the guy had a seizure but I'm still – I'm so _angry_ at him."

Their eyes met and there was this hopelessness to the other man that made Bruce's heart ache because he understood that feeling, knew it well. He'd only met Leonard once but he felt like he was staring at a reflection and he realized then that all those times Betty had told him on the phone 'oh you'll have to meet him, you'll really like him, you two have so much in common' and he didn't believe her because no one was the monster he was that it wasn't the bad in him she was talking about – he just never saw the good.

"I never wanted to hurt her," Bruce started, repeating the line he'd told Tony earlier. "I thought... I didn't think something like this could ever happen. I don't want to upset her. I'll leave, you know, I just... I wanted to be here in case there was something I could do."

"No, no, I'm sorry," Leonard apologized, reaching out and patting him a bit awkwardly on the shoulder. "It's good that you're here, she would like that, all of us together. God –" he laughed, short and sad "– she's a lot like her mother, huh?"

Bruce nodded his agreement at that and for a startled moment he wasn't sure if Leonard was going to hug him or start crying but much to Bruce's relief he did neither. Instead he just muttered something about needing a drink and walked back past Bruce into the waiting room.

They returned to his parents, though Leonard stopped and got a soda from the vending machine, and sat in uncomfortable silence together. Bruce could tell Karen wanted to talk to him. She would look up, their eyes would meet across the aisle between their chairs and her mouth would almost open but then she was sitting next to Thad. And every time she started she would look over at him, stony faced and clearly trying to ignore everything happening around him, and she would stop. When he was in a mood like this ridicule was inevitable and no one wanted to risk incurring the brunt of his angst.

Thankfully they only waited there maybe a half hour before a nurse came and got them, explaining that they could go up to the ICU but only for a little while. Due to the extent of the trauma and the surgery, they were going to hold Betty in a medically induced coma to give her body time to heal and rest. As the nurse lead them down a confusing series of hallways she went through a laundry list of surgical procedures that Bruce couldn't allow himself to listen to, letting Leonard know at the end that they would give him information on everything that was done and the aftercare required once she was more stable.

They ended at a hand wash station and it was nothing like the movies. Together they put on shoe coverings, went through an extreme hand washing procedure, and were finally allowed into an open floor full of hospital beds. The nurse explained that she would be moved to a private room once she was awake and stable but here they could react immediately if anything went wrong – such as if her heart stopped. She warned them that at the moment Betty would look pretty bad – she was intubated and had machines breathing for her to allow her body to rest – and that they really shouldn't touch her or stay very long tonight due to the extreme amount of activity on the floor.

She was telling Leonard she would give him a list of places he could stay nearby when they reached Betty's bed and no amount of glancing at the other patients prepared him for seeing his _sister_ in that condition. Betty looked broken – tubes and bandaging covering what little of her body he could see, her face a swollen mess, a big tube tapped across her mouth, her beautiful hair shaved and a series of butterfly bandages across and ugly gash stitched up. There was a bank of monitors displaying all kinds of data he didn't understand and she was so still, her chest rising and falling methodically with the machine.

It was like the antithesis of Betty – Betty, so full of energy and life, always moving, always smiling. There was nothing of her here in this bed. Conceptually – Bruce just couldn't understand it. The cognitive dissonance was just too intense.

So he watched their reactions – Leonard was crying silent tears as he brushed the back of his knuckles against the form of her underneath the blanket; Karen crying openly to see her daughter like that, unable to approach, standing next to him for some kind of support he wasn't capable of giving; Thad had moved behind Leonard, patting him on the back, stoically looking over the monitors and doing the best he could not to actually look at her at all. Bruce didn't know what he was supposed to do. He felt numb. His greatest fear had come to life – it was staring him right in the face – and he spent so much time imaging it that looking at it now felt like it wasn't even real. It couldn't be. This wasn't his sister.

He stood there until he couldn't any longer. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. He hugged Karen, telling her softly that he would be back soon but that he had to go, and then he moved across the bed to Leonard. Leonard looked at him with tears in his eyes and Bruce hugged him too.

"I have to go," he whispered, swallowing so his voice didn't crack. "Call me if you need anything – _anything_. I'll be here."

"Thanks Bruce," Leonard said back, releasing him somewhat reluctantly and Bruce fought to keep his shit together long enough to make it to the door.

Thad and him exchanged a glance before he left that bespoke a certain amount of sympathy and understanding and Bruce knew Thad didn't want to be there any more than he did. He hated problems he couldn't solve – Bruce knew, because he was one. To see his only child lying crushed in a hospital bed with him standing by, helpless, would destroy him.

He glanced back as he left, watching the nurse as she touched Leonard's arm and he wiped at his eyes, explaining something and Bruce could hardly look at the bed again as he left.

Somewhere in the maze of hallways and elevators he realized he was crying but he just didn't let himself think about it, he just kept going. He could feel his lips trembling and he bit them to try to stop it but it didn't really help. There were people looking at him as he rushed past, worried and alarmed, but he didn't stop moving.

Bruce made it outside before the sob broke free and he allowed himself to fall bodily into the wall, covering his face with one hand as he hid it against the patterned concrete. It was pathetic and he hated it. He'd done so much in his life to hide the raw, ugly things inside himself that this felt bad and wrong but then... there was no one here to see it. No one that mattered.

He gave himself a moment to let enough of it out that he could reasonably walk up to Tony without falling apart. There was nothing about this that he wanted him to see. He just wanted to get home, fall into bed, bury himself in the sheets and pretend he still lived in a world that he could control.

Finally he calmed down enough that his breath was only hitching and he could mostly swallow it down so wiped at his face, knowing it was going to be red and swollen but hoping Tony wouldn't ask. And he wandered out to the parking deck and up the stairs, breathing in the cold night air and wishing he were in the mountains where it was clean and fresh and the smell of cars and oil didn't permeate everything.

Tony was sitting in the driver's seat when he got to the Jeep and Bruce didn't even care, he just slid into the passenger side and leaned back against the seat, staring straight ahead.

"Hey," Tony said, softly, setting down his phone and turning to him, so damn... whatever. Friendly? Sympathetic? He didn't know but Bruce could feel his mouth pull downwards and he stared up at the softtop, fighting to stop from crying.

Then Tony's arm was around his shoulder and his hand was squeezing him in some kind of weird approximation of a hug and Bruce took a shuddering breath in and bit down on his lip. And instead of saying any of that shit people usually said – 'it'll be okay' or 'things will work out,' 'what's meant to be will be' – Tony said the only thing Bruce wanted to hear.

"Let's get out of here."


	12. Chapter 12

Tony could tell Bruce was irritated when he pulled off the highway and into a Steak and Shake but it was late and he was hungry and he knew Bruce needed to eat something. There was no way he was going to take him home and let him crawl into bed depressed and hungry – that was miserable. He knew from experience.

But to his surprise, Bruce didn't argue. He just grudgingly got out of the Jeep and drug his heels into the garishly lit establishment. It was heading on ten and there was no one there but a rowdy pack of teenagers and a couple eating quietly with this ragged look about them that told Tony they'd been on the road a while.

They were allowed to choose their own seat so Tony drug Bruce to the back corner and they sat – Bruce looking as humorless as he'd ever looked, a feat Tony didn't think was possible until that moment. Though the waitress was really giving Bruce a run for his money when she showed up.

Bruce ordered a water and Tony ordered two chocolate shakes. It took Bruce a minute before he even registered the order – though when he did he tried to argue but Tony waved him away.

"You'll feel better," he argued back. "When was the last time you ate? Lunch? Your blood sugar is low, you look miserable, accept the damn shake."

Bruce just slumped back in the booth, looking pissed. Tony didn't care. He knew he was right.

It took longer than it should've for the shakes to come given the lack of patronage and Bruce made him feel every minute of it. Not that he blamed him. It must've been bad – he could tell Bruce had been crying when he came back to the car – and Tony he wanted to ask but he knew that was rude as hell.

He ordered them grilled portobello and swiss burgers when the waitress came back, Bruce acting petulant and glaring at the shake. But as soon as the waitress left Bruce poked at it with his spoon before downing a mouthful of whipped cream. Tony couldn't help but grin across the glass at him, though it was only a slight twitch of his lips because he didn't want to antagonize.

There was a brief moment where Bruce tried to keep up the charade but then his fingertips touched the foot of the glass and drug it over to himself. After a few sips he started to mellow out a bit, playing with the straw and staring into the cup between sips, reminiscing now more than moping. Or at least Tony hoped when he finally got up the nerve to ask, "so...?"

Bruce huffed out a sigh and shook his head. "She's a wreck."

Tony frowned even though he was pretty sure that's what Bruce was going to say. "I'm sorry."

Bruce just shrugged and ran his hands back through his hair. "We'll just have to see. The nurse listed off all this stuff and I... They still had her in a coma, you know? It was weird."

He often wondered what it would be like to actually see his father. It had been so long... The way Rhodey talked he was basically comatose anyway. Sometimes he imagined it – the way it would look, the way it would feel to be standing there, standing over that monolith of a man – young and healthy as his father withered before his eyes. He really didn't know how he'd feel.

"I imagine," Tony mumbled, 'weird' being the only word he could guess would come close to describing that.

Bruce didn't say anything for a moment, just lifted his straw and watched as the milkshake seeped out of it and back into the cup like it was some kind of metaphor on life and Tony hated thinking like that. Like everything was a metaphor.

"You know, it's just..." Bruce started, almost sounding confused but Tony was grateful for the deviation. "I always felt like she saved my life. And there she was – and I can do nothing to save hers."

Tony watched as Bruce's mouth tightened and he pressed the back of his hand to it, blinking away tears. He fought for something to say that wasn't insensitive – contrary to popular belief he generally tried not to be an ass – but then Bruce forced a laugh, saving him the effort.

"It's kind of stupid. She didn't really, you know, not literally."

Bruce glanced at him for a minute but as soon as their eyes met he looked away and Tony knew after years of reading people that he wanted to talk but he wasn't used to it. Maybe he'd never told anyone this. He felt embarrassed and awkward and he didn't know if he could really confide in Tony. And Tony knew what to say, knew how to ease his mind, get him to confess his thoughts but it was hard and even though he tried Tony couldn't make the words come out. This wasn't a client – this was _Bruce_. And he didn't want it to be canned. He wanted... He wanted it to be caring.

"Literal and true are hardly the same thing," Tony replied and Bruce shrugged, swirling his straw in the remaining melt of whipped cream as their burgers were delivered.

Tony poured ketchup on his fries while Bruce picked at them, rearranging them then throwing them down. He was careful not to look at him or make him more uncomfortable, hoping that would put Bruce at ease, and felt a rush of success as the words started pouring out of Bruce's mouth.

"My parents were murdered right in front of me," Bruce said and nothing could've really prepared Tony for that. He tried to say something but Bruce didn't give him the chance, forcing himself headlong into the rest of it. "Don't say anything – it doesn't matter. I don't remember it – I was too young or I repressed it or whatever – but it doesn't matter. Except that Thad – Betty's father, my adoptive father – was on the police team that showed up. I don't remember him being there – the only thing I really remember is the CPS agent and the stupid way she talked to me and how horrified she looked. But I guess he was there and he saw me and...

"We're the same age, Betty and I. And I always felt like he must've saw me and thought – what if it was her? Who would take care of her? Who would watch over her and protect her if he was dead? And – I don't know, he's not really the kind of person that feels guilt but he must've felt something because once I was officially processed in the system and put up for adoption there wasn't a question of who would adopt me. Thad and Karen came and took me home and that was that."

He stopped as abruptly as he had started, leaving Tony trying not to stare, and he picked up his burger without even looking at Tony. Tony recognized it was a defensive thing and he gave him his space.

They ate in silence for a few minutes when Bruce sighed a little and smiled this sideways little grin.

"Our birthdays are only a week apart, you know?" he said, finally looking up at Tony for a moment before staring back down at his plate. "She used to tell people we were twins. I never did – it seemed presumptuous. But she loved it.

"She stopped, though, at the end of high school. I think she thought it embarrassed me but... I always missed it. I never told her but – it was one of the only things that made me feel like part of that family."

"How old were you?" Tony asked carefully, hoping a question wouldn't discourage him. "When you were adopted?"

"Six," Bruce answered as he finished off the last of the burger.

Tony thought back to when he was six and the only thing in the world he wanted was a brother or sister to play with him. He was often ostracized at that age, preferring solo play, building things, and interested in topics generally above the level of even the other boarding school children. Being home was worse, though. Completely alone with only his electronics as company he remembered begging his mother to give him a little brother – or at least a dog. But he got neither and he learned how to grow up alone and miss companionship constantly.

"You should tell her that," Tony suggested, a more personal suggestion than he would ever give a client and he hoped it came off that way instead of pushy, but Bruce looked like he wanted to bury his face in his plate as he nodded and shrugged his hunched shoulders and toyed with the fries.

"Sorry for – this," Bruce sighed after a minute, leaning back in the seat again. "I'm not normally so... fuck. You know? But – thanks. I actually – I do feel better."

Tony smiled and nodded, a little disappointed to see Bruce packing himself away again. But that was who he was and Tony, of all people, couldn't blame him.

"And thanks for suggesting that we go," he continued, almost embarrassed – or so Tony thought. "If you hadn't... I don't think I would've gone. But – I think this is good. I think it's what I had to do."

"You can always thank me by cooking for me again," Tony grinned, stealing a few fries off his plate and shoving them in his mouth in a self-satisfied way.

"Do I have a choice?" Bruce teased, looking up from under the curls that fell over his forehead with a little smirk.

"I don't know _what_ you're implying," Tony shot back with mock propriety as he picked up the check and swiped a few more of Bruce's fries upon standing.

Tony went and paid the check at the counter as Bruce finished his shake and used the restroom. He stepped outside to wait and slid his hands into his pockets, reflexively looking for a pack of cigarettes that wasn't there. But Bruce's keys were.

He stared up at the night sky and wondered for a minute what the hell he was doing. It had been years since he spent so long fucking around on one assignment. Normally he'd be canvassing the surrounding area for other business instead of screwing around drinking beer in a tent every night pretending to write up a report on some fictional monster. He didn't become the preeminent paranormal investigator on the East Coast by sitting on his ass. But then it seemed kind of pointless now – didn't it? Any day he could inherit controlling shares in a multimillion dollar company and then what was he going to do? Come back searching for the so-called Green Mountain Monster?

If he was really honest with himself, maybe that was why he agreed to the Johnson's request anyway – it was close to New York and he didn't really expect to find anything. It was too recent, too undocumented, too unknown. He could back out at any time. Even the thrill of the dead animals at the dump site faded quickly and he just felt... distracted. By his father, by Obie... by Bruce.

He shook his head as he heard the door open behind him. Maybe it was better just to embrace the distraction. He spent so much of his adult life hyper focused on building a business, following all his father's rules, staying in Obie's blindspot, figuring out what to do with his legacy – if he even _wanted_ it. This was to be expected, right? It was just timing. This distraction – it could've been anyone. Because Bruce? That _had_ to be some desperate attempt by his brain to give him a break. He was defensive and obstinate, distant. Difficult. And he clearly _wasn't_ interested in him.

But when Bruce opened the door, Tony couldn't help the way his chest ached a little to see him looking so wrecked. He pulled Bruce's keys from his pocket, holding them out with an uncertain look.

"I'll drive – if you want," he offered and Bruce nodded.

"I'd really appreciate it. I'm..." he trailed off, rubbing at his eyes, clearly exhausted.

"Hey," Tony said, voice soft and sympathetic. "Don't worry about it."

Bruce gave him a tight smile and they headed to the Jeep. Tony pulled up the GPS on his phone as they climbed in and Bruce reclined the passenger seat.

Tony really loved the feel of the highway of night. He did a lot of night driving in his career and he never got bored to watching the world pass by sleepily as he roved around inside his own head.

But there Bruce was, next to him, and the inside of his head was muddled and confused. Because yeah he was abrasive and austere and unambitious – he lived in a trailer on the side of a mountain for fuck's sake – but Tony knew that was all a front for a guy who would invite a stranger in to eat lunch with him, who would sit in the woods at midnight with someone to keep them company and make sure they didn't get lost, who was so scared to be vulnerable that he couldn't tell his sister how much he loved her but would blow a cover he kept for years to make sure she knew. And something about that... it made Tony feel something he hadn't felt in years. Not pity or disgust or frustration but respect? Trust? Affection?

"Hey."

The word was all slurred and Tony glanced over at Bruce, just able to make his face out under the highway lights. His eyes were clouded with sleep but his face was open in a way Tony had never seen before and god – it was widely beautiful. His throat constricted and he had to swallow and look away or get lost in it.

"Thanks," he continued, as if he hadn't already thanked him twice tonight, as if he was afraid that maybe he hadn't ever actually articulated it. "You're – you're good, Tony. You're a good friend."

And that sleepy confession was all it took to unravel Tony completely. He wasn't in love – that he knew, because he didn't fall in love. But in that moment he felt himself slipping.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce watched as the beam of light cast from the window above his headboard slunk slowly down the dresser against the other side of the room. He had been sitting there since it sat on the top drawer. Now it was nearly out of his line of sight, down three drawers, more gold than white, and the room was darker in the corners than it had been all day.

Tomorrow he would go to the hospital to see Betty again. Tonight he wouldn't sleep.

It had been a week. A week full of texts from Leonard and force feeding himself toast and half-assed rounds and hiding beneath the comforter – when he wasn't terrorizing the mountainside as a goddamn monster. She was conscious, he knew that, but weak and confused and Leonard said he should wait – so he waited. And his whole life waited too.

There was a problem inherent with investing your whole world in one person – a problem Bruce was too young to understand before he'd gone in too far with Betty. And it wasn't only that if anything happened to that person, your world was destroyed. It was that if anything happened to that person, you had no one else to lean on, no one else to talk to, no one else to make it seem okay. He just couldn't believe that Betty...

He closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillow. That explained his embarrassing display with Tony. They hardly knew each other, really, they certainly weren't friends. Not – like that. Tony didn't deserve what he got from him that night. He had come to _him_ to vent. And Bruce made it all about him.

But then there was a knock on the door – Tony's telltale knock. The devil himself. Bruce groaned and wrapped himself tighter in the comforter. With skirting his responsibilities and almost never leaving his trailer he hadn't seen Tony all week. It occurred to him once or twice that Tony might eventually come looking for him but he hadn't and so it slipped Bruce's mind. Why did it have to be _now_?

Because now – fuck – he wanted the company. He wanted someone to ask him how he was, if things were okay. Practically the only person he saw all week was Nat when he picked up his paycheck that morning and she did all the talking – but she know about his sister and of course she didn't ask, so he didn't say. Tony, though? Tony knew. Tony would ask. It was the whole reason he was here.

But it was just a courtesy and he'd have to fake it all, pretend it was okay when he was holed up in bed in his boxers, terrified of seeing her tomorrow and terrified that if he didn't he never would again. And he didn't think he could do that.

Tony knocked again and Bruce knew he was nothing if not persistent so he got up, running his hands down his face, wishing he didn't look so obviously shitty. Faking it was going to be hard.

He grabbed a pair of jeans from the top of the hamper and pulled them up on the short walk to the door, opening it enough to see him but hoping he was mostly hidden by the darkness inside the trailer.

"Yeah?" he said and his voice came out all weird and rough and he coughed a little to clear it.

"Shit," Tony offered, his face falling as he looked up and forced the door open a little wider, Bruce not resisting because he figured that would look as childish as it was stupid. "Take a shower – get dressed."

Tony was heading into his trailer without even being invited, flipping the lights and closing the door behind him.

"What?" Bruce asked, shaking his head as he backed away towards the protection of his bedroom.

"Bucky's having a party tonight – Nat said she told you," Tony explained as he sat himself down at the kitchen table and Bruce tried to recall her saying that. "Just employees, you know, a small thing."

"And you," Bruce accused defensively and Tony shrugged.

"There'll be food and beer and you need to get out of here anyway."

Tony was playing absently with the coaster and Bruce was getting mad. He didn't want to go anywhere. He sure as hell didn't want to go to a _party_.

"No," he replied, heat in his gut making him feel a bit more alive than he had all week.

"Come on," Tony asked, suddenly more of a request than a demand, voice softening. "You'll feel better to get out. I want to know that you're okay. I've worried but I thought, you know, give you your space but. When are you going back?"

"Tomorrow," Bruce answered quietly and Tony nodded.

"Is... She's out of the coma?" he asked carefully and Bruce kinda laughed to mask the way hearing it out loud made him feel but it backfired, just made it more obvious, and he had to look away to hold it together enough to answer.

"Y-yeah," he stuttered. "She's – she's awake. Doing well, I guess. Leonard – my brother-in-law – he just thought, you know, it was better to wait a couple days, the trauma, she's disoriented..."

"Makes sense," Tony agreed once it became obvious Bruce wasn't going to continue.

There was a long silence where Tony waited for Bruce to speak but he didn't know what to say. Still, he appreciated Tony's presence, appreciated that he gave him the space to say something, even if he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"You don't have to come out tonight, obviously, I can't make you," Tony offered at last. "But I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think it would help."

Bruce nodded and looked down at his feet, feeling stupid and embarrassed.

"We don't even have to stay a long time," he continued and Bruce selfishly liked hearing 'we' – like they were in this together, like Tony would leave with him if he wanted. "And if you don't want to go at all maybe we can just ride to town and get something to eat?"

He rubbed one hand over this eyes and looked up. "I can take a shower?"

"Sure," Tony smiled. "We're in no rush."

Bruce took a quick shower, trying not to talk himself into chickening out. He knew Tony was right, he had to get out of here, and it would take his mind off of Betty for a few hours anyway, meaning he'd have less time to sit and wait and replay his visit to the ER over and over again. Plus, while they weren't exactly close, and Bruce didn't really like parties, he did like Bucky and Nat and his other coworkers. He'd been to gatherings of Bucky's before and it was easy. This would be okay.

He dressed, throwing on a clean pair of jeans and a plain black tee. For a moment he picked up his mother's ring, fingering it to center himself, before taking a deep breath and walking out to meet Tony once more.

Tony looked up when he walked in, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face when he saw him, suddenly making Bruce feel even more self conscious than he already was. He hadn't had much motivation to shave and so he scratched at the longer than normal stubble nervously, casting his eyes downward as he asked –

"Ready?"

They decided to walk over to Bucky's trailer so neither of them had to worry about driving and though it was kind of a haul the cooling night air felt good on his clean skin and the little bit of exercise put him in better spirits than he'd been in all week. So he almost felt good as they approached, already hearing Clint and Bucky laughing through the trees.

Between the two of them Bucky's trailer was considered a better deal. It had a big open "backyard" of sorts that abutted a pavilion through a copse of trees. You could easily host parties there and while a switch was offered to him every time the host left and had to be replaced, Bruce preferred the privacy of his current set up – for obvious reasons.

Bucky also did his whole trailer up in this tacky get up that Bruce couldn't understand. They could see the Christmas lights strung across it as they approached – the plastic flamingos, lawn gnomes, and weird thrift shop finds only visible as they cleared the trees. All in all it looked like some seventy five year old retired couple from Florida came and threw up in his yard. Bruce supposed it was just part of his particular "charm" though.

They stepped into Bucky's backyard together and were greeted with the enthusiastic smiles of Bucky, Clint, and Thor. Tony seemed to know Thor – which shouldn't have surprised Bruce but it did. Thor wasn't here often, he actually worked for the state conservatory and just did wildlife seminars – primarily with wild birds. All the kids loved it but it was kind of corny. They did hold several events over the summer though so Tony must have attended one.

"Good to see you!" Bucky called, running over and punching him in the shoulder with his good arm and Bruce couldn't help but smile.

"Yes, Bruce!" Thor called from the grill. "It's been too long!"

"The girls are inside," Clint said as he came up with two beers, handing them off to Tony and Bruce respectively. "Unfortunately for you, they're _both_ spoken for."

Clint winked and Bruce cocked his head, confused, until the door opened and Jane and Nat stepped out and then it suddenly made sense.

"Congratulations," he murmured as the women both smiled and headed over holding chips and dip and plastic forks and plates on their way to the card table Bucky used as a serving area.

"Guess Tony talked you into it?" Nat said with a little smirk as they passed by. "You seemed so distracted earlier I wasn't sure you even heard me."

"Sorry," he apologized but she waved it away, following Jane to the table to set out supplies.

"Hey, come on inside for a minute," Bucky offered with a sly grin and Bruce knew exactly what was waiting.

He glanced at Tony and Tony smiled like he knew too, holding out his hand with a jovial "after you."

They headed into the trailer and in contrast to the outside it was barren, devoid of all personal artifacts, nothing but a pile of laundry in the corner by the bathroom, too many dishes in the sink, and a few stacks of mail. Bucky was the same kind of eccentric as Bruce though – he hid from his memories of Blackwater and Iraq out here in his dinky little trailer. But whereas Bruce whiled away in a rich inner world, hiding it beneath a plain veneer, Bucky had a flashy facade to cover up the emptiness within.

But on the table was a bong and a lighter and a gratuitous bag of weed and Bruce felt a stupid sense of anticipation when he saw it. He used to think pot helped contain the monster because he slept so heavy after getting stoned – but unfortunately he learned in the most terrifying way that he actually just didn't remember most of his escapades after a night of smoking and so he stopped lest something happen like what happened with that kid – not that it mattered in the long run, apparently. He still killed a boy. The hard truth was, there was no way to stop it.

He still enjoyed it though, and occasionally met up with Bucky at night, but it had been a while. Now couldn't have been better timing and he had a feeling Tony had something to do with it as they slid into that wood-painted fiberglass seat together and Bucky took the bong to the sink to fill it with water.

"Thanks," Bruce said as Bucky set the bong in front of him and Bruce opened the bag to pack the bowl.

"I miss smoking with you," Bucky grinned, looking towards Tony. "He gets so fucking poetic when he's high."

Bruce tried not to blush as he felt Tony's eyes on him.

"He can be pretty poetic sober too," Tony teased and Bruce's mouth tightened in embarrassment.

"I just need to take the edge off – I don't intend to get trashed." He looked up at Bucky then, gauging his clear eyes and realizing that Tony must not have told him. "My sister was in a bad car accident. Hours of surgery. I'm going to the hospital see her tomorrow."

"Oh shit," Bucky replied, sincerely concerned, as Bruce looked back down at the bowl to check if he packed it right. "I'm sorry, man."

"It's okay, I just..." Bruce trailed off, picking up the lighter. He didn't really want to talk about it, not with Bucky, not really with anyone, he just wanted to be left alone. But unfortunately that usually meant telling people so they knew not to fuck with you.

He put his mouth in the bong and lit it, watching it fill with smoke before he took the hit. It was everything he wanted it to be – smooth and calming and the stress seemed to slide from his body as he exhaled even though he coughed a little and passed the bong to Tony.

They passed it around once and the second hit was even better. He handed it to Tony and watched as he put his mouth in it and for some reason, although he had never thought about Tony like that before, it seemed incredibly phallic. And he couldn't help the little giggle that welled up from his gut.

Tony looked at him askance from beneath his long lashes as he exhaled a long line of smoke and handed the bong off to Bucky. For some reason the way Tony was looking at him only made him laugh harder and then Tony was laughing too and it felt really, really good to laugh like that with him.

"You guys are fucking lightweights," Bucky muttered as he watched, unaffected by their moment.

"Not all of us get to smoke pot every day for our 'chronic pain,'" Bruce shot back complete with air quotes and a shit eating grin and Bucky held up the fist of his prosthetic arm as he took a hit, the middle finger rising as far as it would, which was only about half way before the rest of the fingers would start rising up too but it got the point across.

"They ought to have made you one like that," Bruce teased as he expertly rolled a joint, grinning over the paper as he darted his tongue out to lick it. "Just one middle finger up. Get more use out of it."

"Jesus _Christ_ ," Tony choked, trying not to laugh, but not even Bucky could help himself and he exhaled out a laugh with a puff of smoke and then it was over – they were all in a fit of giggles.

Nat and Jane walked in then to get a few last items they'd forgotten and Nat rolled her eyes.

"Thor's gonna be pissed you're in here without him," she said as she opened the pantry to get some rolls stored there.

"Don't worry, we've got enough to knock even Thor on his ass," Bucky said as he offered the bong back to Tony.

Jane spun around, holding up an accusatory finger. "Uh uh. Not tonight Bucky. I've been traveling all over this state for two fucking months tagging fish – do you have any _idea_ how difficult that is? – and this is the first weekend we've had together since I started this project and we work for the same damn place. I –"

"Don't worry honey, you're going to get laid," Bucky interrupted to a chorus of sniggers from Tony and Bruce.

Jane stalked the few steps over to the table and leaned on it, pointing her finger straight in Bucky's face.

"I better," she threatened, turning to join Nat and take some of the items she'd compiled.

"You will – even if I have to do it myself!" Bucky called after her.

"You wish!" she called back as the door shut.

They all looked at each other for a moment and laughed and Bruce suddenly felt so damn grateful to be sitting at that table with them. He knew it was mostly just the pot lowering his inhibitions but ultimately he was grateful for that too. Already he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed so much. Tony was right – he had needed this.

"Thor's probably about done at the grill," Bucky murmured after a moment and Bruce took a long drag off his joint, relishing in the calm, relaxed state he found himself in.

Tony had declined the last hit off the bong and so Bruce offered him one of the final hits off his joint and Tony took it. And Bruce found himself zoning out, watching Tony's handsome face as closed his eyes and inhaled, thinking how strange it was that Tony was there at all and such an important part of his life. He had started out just a potential pain in his ass but now he was the only person who knew something very deep and intimate about him and actually cared enough to nurture it.

Bruce shook his head to clear it of those confusing thoughts, writing them off as he finished his joint and Bucky emptied out the bowl in a paper towel, wiping it clean before they headed back out to the card table and the assembled collection of various ratty folding chairs. When he smelled the burgers on the grill Bruce realized suddenly that he was absolutely starving and couldn't even remember the last time he ate.

Thor brought over a huge plate of cheeseburgers and set it on the table and they all made plates, choosing chairs and settling in to eat. Everything tasted amazing to Bruce – even though he objectively knew it was far from the best meal he'd ever had – and next to him Tony groaned in appreciation, turning towards Thor.

"This is amazing," he enthused and Thor grinned broadly while Jane laughed.

"You are so high," Jane teased and Tony just shrugged.

"Doesn't make it not true."

"He's not particularly hard to please," Bruce added and Tony glanced back over at him, offering a goofy grin full of burger over the meals they had together.

"What do you know?" Clint asked, breaking their moment. "You're an amazing cook."

"Also, true," Tony conceded as he swallowed and Bruce blushed, looking down at the plate in his lap.

"Don't try to deny it," Nat chimed in, setting her beer down by her feet. "I tasted that barbecue pork you made for the last employee potluck."

"Employee potluck?" Clint asked as Bruce snorted.

"You mean the one that kid got fired at?" he asked. "The last one we ever had?"

Nat started laughing – they were the only two that had been there to witness that disaster.

"Okay you guys," Bucky said. "What the fuck?"

"Once upon a time, we used to have employee potlucks at the end of the summer," Nat started and Bruce nodded along.

"To celebrate making it through and you know, to say goodbye to the summer staff," Bruce added as he took another bite.

"Well, this kid – what was his name? Joe? Joseph?" Nat asked, looking at Bruce and he held up a finger to give himself a moment to swallow.

"Jordan."

"Right! Jordan," Nat agreed, "well, he had a particularly rough summer."

"It's right there on the job description," Bruce said, waving a plastic forkful of potato salad. "If you can't handle cleaning bathrooms and picking up dog shit, this might not be the job for you."

"Anyway," Nat picked back up, "he stuck it out. I don't know why, he was seventeen and lived with his parents, he didn't need the money and he was clearly miserable but whatever – I was proud of him. But I also wasn't particularly surprised when he didn't show up to the potluck because, you know – he wasn't obligated. He already got his last paycheck.

"Well he ends up showing up halfway through absolutely trashed. Who even knows how he got here in one piece. It was an act of God."

Bruce giggled. "It was an act of _something_."

Natasha's eyes widened sarcastically as she took a sip of beer.

"Well at first he was just weirdly quiet? And we all thought that would be the extent of it, this award drunk teenager, and we were all trying to guess what Steve would do because he's such a stickler about underage drinking. But then this kid knocks over half a table's worth of food to get everyone's attention, shattering people's serving wear, and went on a stuttering roast of everyone in the park."

"What did he call you?" Bruce interrupted. "A stuck-up know-it-all bitch who needed to get her goth head out of her ass?"

"At least I wasn't a pathetic, lonely, ass fucker," Natasha shot back and everyone laughed.

"You're too kind," Bruce enthused generously. "I'm certain the word 'pedophile' was in there too. He got more creative by the time he got to me."

"How many times had he even talked to you?" Nat asked, grinning, clearly thinking back to the scene. "I remember he just stared at you for a minute like he didn't even know who the hell you were."

"Couldn't have been more than once or twice – you know how I feel about the teenagers," Bruce replied but before Nat could say anything else Clint chimed in.

"What about Steve?" he asked impatiently, clearly the question on everyone's mind as they looked at the two of them with interest.

Nat burst out laughing, which was rare for her, and Bruce smiled to see it, loving the sound of her laugh.

"Well, Steve finally got up to put an end to it and it seemed like he had this whole spiel prepared specifically for Steve – what he could say about Steve, who even knows! – but when he opened his mouth he threw up all over him."

"Holy shit!" Bucky laughed as Clint cringed at whatever visualization he'd conjured in his imagination and buried his head in his hands.

"What an idiot," Clint groaned and Jane smacked Thor on the shoulder.

"I thought that osprey getting it's talons caught in your hair in the middle of a presentation was embarrassing," she teased and though Thor grinned, as he was nothing if not good-natured, Bruce watched the way he stroked possessively down his golden locks tied up at the nape of his neck.

"I bet Tony has the best work stories," Thor offered and all eyes turned from him to Tony who covered his mouth surreptitiously as he finished chewing.

"Honestly you get so used to dealing with weirdos as a paranormal investigator that it all seems rather mundane," Tony started, much to the disappointment of everyone but Bruce could see in his eyes that he was just looking for the right story. He couldn't imagine the catalog Tony had built up over the years.

"Of course," Tony mused as he sipped at his beer, totally playing the audience and amusing the hell out of Bruce, "there was always the Whitmore lady..."

"Well then tell that," Clint suggested and Tony shrugged, setting down his fork and settling into the seat.

"Well, okay, so – I get a call from this lady's daughter who had followed my blog and knew I was in town. She went on and on about it being fate that I was there but you know I didn't think a lot of it because everyone does that. But she's all upset because her father died a few weeks prior and her mother kept asking about him and where he was and she thought it would help to do a seance.

"Just so we're clear – while some people get closure from seances it's generally not what I would recommend, especially for someone else, not yourself," Tony explained. "And I told her that – but she insisted and what can I do? I can't turn down work on the basis that I think it's ridiculous or I wouldn't really have a job."

That garnered a few chuckles but Bruce was fixated on the way he talked – the relaxation of his pose, the way his hands moved, the way his _lips_ moved... He felt embarrassment fluttering in his gut when he realized he was staring but he couldn't look away.

"Anyway I show up at this retirement community – one of these ones that's all fifty-five plus duplexes and nothing seems strange. The mother – Mrs. Whitmore – is clearly disappointed to see me, like she was expecting someone else and then she just walked away from the door as if it didn't matter whether I went in or not. Not very much creeps me out at this point, but the vacant look in her eyes as she left sure as hell did.

"But her daughter, the chick who hired me, came to the door, and she's covered in tattoos and this vaguely Indian garb with messy dreadlocks and things are starting to make sense to me." Tony grinned a little and shook his head, clearly relishing in his own storytelling, amusing Bruce even more. "Her brother is there and he's a fat balding guy and I'm asking her if her mother even knows who I am and what I'm doing there. She claims she's just distracted but the brother is losing it, saying she clearly has dementia and she needs to be put in a home but it's clear no one has listened to him for the past fifteen years so he doesn't put up much of a fight.

"Anyway I'm in this shitshow now so what am I going to do? I bring in my seance supplies."

"Seance supplies?" Jane interrupts, one delicate brow arched skeptically and Bruce figures as a scientist this is pretty difficult to stomach.

"Yeah, you know, a fancy tablecloth, candles, incense, the whole nine yards," Tony answered with a wink. "I really make it worth the money – give my clients a 'premium' experience."

"Oh, is _that_ what it is?" she joked and he smiled genially, used to getting shit at this point Bruce was sure.

"It is! It's really lovely. I have my supplies – we can do one before you leave...?"

Jane laughed but before she got more than a word out Clint glared at her. "Let him finish!"

" _Anyway_ ," Tony emphasized with a pointed but amused glance towards Jane, "as I'm setting up for this seance Mrs. Whitmore keeps going on and on about where's Donald and how he would be so unhappy with strangers there and it became clear to me that her son was right – she had to have dementia or something. So I just gave up on her and decided that the daughter had to be doing this for her own benefit and that I would try to satisfy her because Mrs. Whitmore could clearly care less.

"So I've got everything set up and we have candles and an offering and incense burning and Mrs. Whitmore finally agrees to sit down at this table with us and summon her dead husband Donald."

Tony grinned in this cocky, self-confident way, running his fingers under his chin and Bruce realized suddenly that he adored that grin. And he didn't know why – and he couldn't explain it. He _wanted_ to explain the feeling in his gut with pot and beer and too much food after not eating all week but... he knew that was a lie. Suddenly he didn't think he could eat another bite.

"Well, we're getting into it, you know? The lights are off and the room is smoky and I've finally 'contacted' this guy when the candles all flicker and go out because the door opened and in walks this fucker. His daughter screams, I'm pretty sure his son just flat out pissed himself – hell, even I was scared shitless I conjured a damn apparition or something for a minute – but here's Mrs. Whitmore, giving him hell for not leaving a note."

Everyone burst into laughter at the resolution and Tony picked up his beer, taking a long swig of it.

"So what – he just left? Why the hell did he come back?" Bucky asked, shocked.

Tony shrugged. "Apparently! Guy just got bored of his wife and his disappointing kids and walked out for a couple weeks without telling anyone. Must've gotten lonely on his road trip, I guess."

"And they thought he was dead?" Nat asked in disbelief.

"Yeah – supposedly the girl never got any clarification and just assumed that was what happened? I don't know, I didn't hang around to sort out _that_ mess." Tony chuckled.

For a moment everyone was calm, finishing up their plate or the end of their beer. Jane motioned to Bucky that she was going to go roll a joint and he permitted her with the flourish of his hand towards the trailer as he shoved the last bite of potato salad on his plate in his mouth. Clint gathered up Nat's plate for her to take to the trash. And Bruce sat there with his heart pounding, intensely aware of every inch of the two feet between him and Tony as he chewed mechanically through the last of his burger.

It was ridiculous. _Tony_? Because he was clearly an attractive man? Because he was funny and charismatic? Because he seemed like he cared? He was going to leave in a few weeks and Bruce would never see him again. There was no point in getting attached to him. In fact, it was stupid.

Bruce stood and excused himself to the bathroom to try to get his shit together. He passed Jane on the way and she smiled at him but it was difficult to smile back and was grateful for the privacy of a locked door. Staring at himself in the mirror had that unreal quality it always did when drunk or high and he smacked his own cheek, trying to snap himself out of it. Because this sudden burst of attraction he felt for Tony had to be a product of his mental state... right?

Besides – Bruce decided after he'd splashed a gratuitous amount of cold water on his face – it didn't matter because Tony could never be attracted to him. So whether he was really attracted to Tony or not, he just had to suck it up until Tony left. And if there was one thing Bruce was good at, it was denying himself the things he wanted.

So he took a deep breath and got ready to face Tony again, feeling a little more centered and emotionally prepared for it. But when Bruce walked outside to rejoin them all eyes turned towards him and he immediately felt ambushed.

"There you are!" Thor greeted as he handed Jane's joint back to her.

Tony had quickly downed the rest of his beer to ask – "Do you want to go to the lake with us?"

Bruce glanced across the group, uncertain but unsure why he should say no. "Sure. Everyone's going?"

"Ha – I'm not joining that sausage fest." Bucky snorted and Bruce realized Jane must've brought him a joint too as he brought it to his mouth, a clear indication that he was done with much more than talking for the night.

And then Thor was standing and Clint was too and Tony was already walking over to him and even if he wanted to back out, he couldn't now.

"Ready for a swim?" Tony asked as he sidled up beside him, cocking his eyebrows in a flirtatious manner that bulldozed right over any calm Bruce had managed to achieve only moments earlier.

He didn't answer, just accepting his confusion as he tried to stop his head from spinning at the bright smile Tony gave him when suddenly he realized as the four of them headed down to the lake together what Tony meant by 'swim.'

Skinny dipping.

Then Bruce knew he was utterly fucked.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Since I am literally working on the last chapter I decided to start posting on Mondays as well as Fridays so I don't have to go another 12 weeks posting – that just seems like so long! Just a head's up. =) As always – thanks for reading.

* * *

It had been a long time since Tony felt as good as he felt then as he walked alongside Bruce through the trees in the cooling night air. He was relaxed and this was easy – these people were nice and they genuinely seemed to like him and they didn't want anything. The little crush he was harboring for Bruce made him feel warm and light and fuzzy at the edges every time he glanced in his direction. If he had wanted a break, this was a good one. It was perfect.

"We should go to the B docks yeah?" Clint asked and Bruce nodded a little stiffly, their feet crunching through old leaves and pine straw as they entered out on a walking path that followed the road for a minute.

"How did you guys come to the conclusion this was a good idea in the two minutes I was gone?" Bruce asked and Tony chuckled at the negativity in his voice. Only Bruce could be such a pain in the ass while high.

"You've never taken _me_ to see the lake," Tony accused petulantly with a big smile on his face.

"I didn't realize I was your personal tour guide," he muttered. "You went to see Thor's bird show without me."

"Jealous, Banner?" Thor asked, a little too amused in that particular way of his – like everything was a joke – and Bruce glared back at him as Tony laughed harder.

"Of you?" Bruce replied, as if the question was so preposterous it wasn't worth asking and Thor chuckled.

"You're an even bigger asshole when you're high," Tony giggled and the others couldn't help but laugh too.

"Funny," Bruce grumbled, "I was thinking you were nearly bearable." Tony feigned hurt because he could see the edges of Bruce's lips curled in a smile.

"It's just his true loveable personality shining through," Clint sniped and Bruce sighed.

"Shut up Clint," he shot back over his shoulder to Thor and Clint's snickering.

"It was Clint's idea," Tony tattled after a beat, eager to keep this version of Bruce around – funny, biting, and less cautious than he normally was. "He was the one who said it'd be a great night for a swim."

"Unfortunately I didn't realize Thor was going to come and put as all to shame," he muttered as Thor grinned and clapped him so hard on the back he stumbled.

"Speak for yourself," Bruce snapped back over his shoulder.

"You are jealous of nothing, eh?" Thor asked, catching up with a few quick strides and throwing one thick, muscular arm around Bruce's neck.

"I choose to live in a trailer at a state park," he replied, to Tony's surprise not even trying to remove his arm. "I gave up jealousy a long time ago."

"This is how it should be," Thor agreed, patting his chest before removing his arm and falling back to walk alongside Clint again. "The world would be a better place if more people were like you, Banner."

Bruce just made a face that implied that he _highly_ doubted that and they fell silent for a moment as they reentered rough terrain. It was dark beneath the cover of trees and Tony couldn't see Bruce's face any more but he wondered if that were true. Was it possible to give up jealousy? Or was Bruce just denying himself the potential of ever experiencing it?

Certainly Tony was mature enough to admit he was jealous of a lot of the things people with normal lives had. Made from scratch meals, family, home. Waking up and looking at the same ceiling every morning. Waking up next to the same person more than once or twice. It was part of why he was doing this, he knew it. Waking up here every morning, even in a tent, and getting to know these people felt good after so long. It wasn't good, not for a paranormal investigator, he was losing armfuls of money for every day he stayed without even attempting to vet new work but... He was jealous. He wanted it.

But Bruce's reasons for being out here weren't his business. It was clear he'd had a rough start and trusting people would be hard. Hell trusting people to get close – really _close_ – was hard for Tony and his parents weren't murdered. He wasn't going to call him out on it.

Finally they broke through the tree line and the lake lay before them in all its placid majesty. Tony hadn't realized it before but the moon was huge over the water, the plate reflection shimmering in the pool below it, lighting up the lake like glitter across construction paper.

"Full moon?" Tony murmured as he stared at it, clear like on the highway sixty miles from the nearest city.

"No plans to go looking for werewolves, right?" Bruce teased as he pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his toned arms and hairy torso.

"I think I've already found one," he shot back with a grin and Bruce rolled his eyes, slipping the button on his pants.

Tony looked away and back at the lake. The last thing he wanted was a boner from watching Bruce undress. He was just so damn sincere about it – it made Tony feel uncomfortable that Bruce didn't know how he saw him. Just looking at his face, profile backlit by moonlight, shining off his curls, made him ache to twist his fingers in his hair and kiss him hard under the full moon and if that wasn't the most ridiculously romantic thought he'd had in ten years he'd be damned.

But thankfully Thor provided a welcome distraction as he moved past them and to the dock, running gracefully down it and completing a textbook dive without hardly a splash.

"Show off," Clint grumbled, following awkwardly after with nowhere near the level of confidence Thor had after witnessing that display of masculinity but Tony was merely amused – and Bruce didn't get jealous.

Clint did however perform a little bow at the end of the dock before he simply jumped off to a seemingly genuine applause from Thor.

Bruce laughed and he turned towards Tony, eyes bright and unburdened in a way he had yet to see on Bruce and it made his chest feel entirely too tight and he desperately wanted to shut this thing down before it overwhelmed him but he didn't know how.

"After you," Bruce said with an open gesture towards the dock and Tony took a deep breath and let it out quickly.

He _was_ going to make it through this night.

Tony didn't even try for grace. As he began running down the dock he felt so light and free, like he was shedding all of his burdens and was just going to float away and so when he jumped he jumped as far as he could in a crazy cacophony of limbs and crashed painfully into the water. It was surprisingly cold, knocking the air from his lungs, but it was also refreshing and he fought towards the surface with a sense of rejuvenation he had never before experienced in his life. He didn't know if it was the weed or the safety he felt here or the absolute lack of responsibility he was currently enjoying or hell maybe it was even this thing for Bruce but he was laughing as he broke the surface and he felt good and he felt whole.

He looked for Bruce and watched as he dove from the dock into the water in a similar style if not of similar skill as Thor's dive. But he didn't immediately come up and Tony began to scan the surface of the water, feeling panic rising in his gut until he was suddenly submerged underwater again, sucking it in through his nose in his surprise and flailing his limbs as he fought to the surface.

Tony emerged sputtering and choking and trying to tread water with Bruce next to him laughing between huge breaths. Finally he was able to speak well enough to get out a ragged "how did you even find me?"

"Not difficult – full moon," Bruce replied giggling and Tony stared at him in shock, hair dripping down his face and it took a minute but finally Tony processed it.

"Are you... making fun of my ass?" he asked, incredulous and Bruce bit his lip on a grin and shrugged.

"It is rather pale!" Thor called as Tony lunged towards Bruce.

He managed to get Bruce's head underwater with the element of surprise, pushing down hard on his shoulders, but Bruce was strong and he grabbed him by the waist and drug him down again, climbing up over him. For a moment they wrestled, taking desperate gasps of air before the other pulled him down. But finally they broke apart laughing, Bruce shoving away and pushing the hair back from his forehead and staring at him with those big eyes reflecting the moonlight like the lake – sparkling.

"It's beautiful out here," Tony mumbled stupidly, looking up at the moon, tilting himself backwards and stretching out his arms to float and stare up at it.

"As far as prisons go, it's the best," Bruce agreed, barely a whisper, as if he were talking to himself more than he was Tony and so Tony let it go.

Clint and Thor joked around a little longer, Bruce splashing over to them for a minute but Tony was enjoying the deaf rush of water in his ears, the numbing chill of mountain water, the black sky full of pin pricks above, and the inky blackness of the water beneath him. He had never been very good at meditation – the thoughts in his head flew by a million miles a minute and he was helpless to dissect them – and maybe this was the closest he ever got. But he felt wonderfully empty right then and he knew as soon as he moved the whole world would come pouring in again.

Finally he moved, feeling as though he'd fall asleep if he floated there much longer. But when he glanced around they were gone – except for Bruce who was sitting on the dock, watching him with his legs in the water.

Tony swam over and climbed up on the dock next to him, only a few inches away, the air warm on his chilled skin, creating goosebumps.

"You should've let me know they were leaving."

Bruce shrugged. "I said we'd catch up or just turn in. You looked happy."

Something about that made Tony want to blush. No one had ever told him that before.

"Are you?" Tony asked, watching his feet disappear and distort as he moved them slowly up and down in the water, thinking of Bruce calling the park a prison. "I mean, obviously not now with everything but... you know. In general."

Bruce sighed and shook his head just slightly. "I don't know. I have good moments but. I don't know that I _can_ be happy."

Tony hummed, letting his legs stop and sitting completely still. "Me either."

There was so much noise on the dock. Frogs, crickets, cicadas, the sound of the trees rustling with the fireflies beneath them, Bruce's steady breathing, the pounding in his head. It was uncomfortable how loud it was, how heavy he felt now, burdened by gravity and this conversation.

"It doesn't matter though, does it? I mean, really?" Bruce asked, jarring him and Tony looked at him, looked him in the eyes as he spoke. "We weren't put here by some divine cosmic force to be happy. If that were the case, there would be no war, no famine, no suffering. We are merely the byproduct of reproduction. People like to talk about happiness as if it matters, as if it's some kind of ultimate 'goal' but... the truth is that it's not. Just accept it."

"Fuck," Tony said, blinking in surprise. "You're fucking depressing."

Now Bruce looked shocked – or maybe confused. His brows furrowed and he looked away again.

"Does that depress you?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. "I find it comforting."

Tony laughed, rubbing at this eyes. "You're really something, you know?"

Bruce shrugged again as he stared out over the lake. "Maybe. But I don't have to live to anyone else's standards."

For a minute Tony didn't think anything about it but then he turned back to Bruce, studying him, and he wanted to kiss him more than he ever did before. Kiss him, devour him, make love to him right there on that dock, under the moonlight, for all the fuckoffs in heaven to see.

What kind of man was he? Every time Tony thought he knew, he found he wasn't at all sure. He said things Tony had never heard anyone say, thought things in a way no one else would think about them. It was insanely attractive and a little bit sad but every time he opened his mouth Tony hung on every word and god... what was he going to do?

Tony leaned towards him like a moth flickering towards the flame, wishing for the confidence to make their lips meet, to show him a little warmth, a little kindness in this world he seemed so weary of. But... he was weak. And when Bruce turned back towards him he retreated into the safety of his own personal space, embarrassed by his hubris.

"Ready?" he asked, and all Tony could do was nod his head and swallow back all of his desires.

They dressed in silence and headed back through the woods towards the campsite, which was closer than Bucky's trailer, and Tony's mind raced the whole time for something to say, something to make Bruce smile or laugh, something to show him how he felt about him – but what was there to say? In a week or two he'd be gone and this all would be a memory.

The worst part though by far was that he abruptly realized that Bruce was right. Happiness wasn't even a factor in his plans. Would owning SI and shutting down Obie make him happy? The truth was that it wouldn't – it was just an obligation, something he felt he had to do, yet it would easily become the rest of his life. If happiness was his goal, then wouldn't he stay here? A vagabond in a tent? Because this was the happiest he'd been in years. Yet he couldn't do that. It was ridiculous to even consider. And how happy would that really make him long term? Was there anything that would truly make him happy long term? Anything he was capable of possessing?

"You're right," Tony said, voice full of sad reality as their feet hit the pavement of the road, spiraling rapidly towards bottoming out.

"Don't, Tony," Bruce warned, stopping him at the path that branched towards his tent, the other to Bruce's trailer. "This was – Don't ruin it for yourself."

"How do I stop?" he asked softly, openly – searching Bruce's eyes like he could tell him what to do, like he knew any more about life than Tony, just an equally confused soul trying to make it through alone.

"I don't know." Bruce shook his head. "Just – appreciate when it's good."

For a moment Bruce smiled at him, this sad little smile that almost seemed like longing, and Tony reexperienced that fleeting feeling of freedom that flying off the dock had given him, like he knew he would crash and it would be okay, it might even feel good, and though he wasn't _happy_ – he _was_ grateful. Because if he could find that in Bruce's smile, then maybe he could find that somewhere else too, if he was looking for it.

"Thanks," Tony offered and Bruce laughed.

"For nothing," he added and Tony grinned back.

"I wasn't going to say that," Tony teased, reaching out to punch him lightly in the shoulder, suppressing the urge to hug him instead. "Well, I'm going to get a shower I guess."

"Yeah," Bruce said, not even saying goodbye, just shoving his hands in his pockets and turning away.

And the whole time Tony watched his back, feeling like there was something there he just couldn't figure out – but it felt a lot like happiness.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Hey you! Yes, you! The person who only comes and checks this fic on Fridays! I decided to start posting on Mondays and Fridays now because I'm just wrapping up the epilogue now so please check to make sure you read chapter 14 before starting this one. ;-) Thanks for reading!

* * *

Bruce was only a couple feet from his trailer when he finally turned back around. It was stupid, so stupid, but as he walked away for some reason he remembered that dumbfuck line Tony told Clint about looking back over your shoulder as you walked away and so he did – and Tony was watching him leave without moving.

What did that even mean? Nothing. But his whole chest constricted and Bruce _wanted_ him. All that bullshit about happiness and what did he know? That he was a monster and monsters could never truly be happy and that the happiest he had been in a long time had been when he was with Tony.

But the thing he realized as he walked away, the thing that held him back from other people, from Betty and her family, didn't apply to Tony. Because Tony would leave in a few weeks, because he was temporary. And suddenly everything he'd said about the moment, stuff he wanted to believe but didn't because it was hard, so hard, to let go of the things he loved seemed like it actually made sense for once. Why shouldn't he be with Tony while they had the chance? If Tony wanted to be with him too? It was just a moment and a moment was all he was ever going to have.

So when he looked back and saw Tony watching him walk away, all of his arguments against this – whatever "this" was – fell away and he was left with the harsh reality that he had refused for some time now to fully confront. He _wanted_ Tony and – maybe – Tony wanted _him_ too.

But still, it took Bruce a minute to work up his nerve. It was easier to maintain the status quo, to hide and deny himself what he wanted – that was what he was good at. But when he saw the trailer, that little metal encasement of his loneliness, and thought about the week that had just gone by, how he spent it alone curled up in the sheets watching the light fade through the bedroom window and he decided it was worth the risk. He didn't want to be alone tonight.

Bruce tried to clear his mind as be headed back to Tony's tent so he couldn't talk himself out of it but his heart was pounding and the blood was rushing in his ears and he had no idea what he was going to say to him. It didn't matter though, did it? If Tony wasn't interested then anything he said would come out wrong and if he _was_... well then wouldn't everything be all right?

However when he reached Tony's campsite he wasn't there and the immeasurable feeling of loss hit him hard, followed swiftly by a sudden desperation. Tony's car was still there. Maybe he went back to Bucky's? Bruce balked at the idea of showing back up and trying to woo Tony away publicly. But just as he was about to walk away defeated he caught a glimpse of the bathhouse lights through the trees and remembered that Tony had said he was going to take a shower.

That, at least, was an acceptable risk and as he walked through the darkness towards the light his heart rate picked up again. It was late – if there was anyone else there other than Tony he would be surprised. That was good. If he was about to make an ass of himself then he'd prefer to be spared public humiliation.

He entered the familiar bathhouse that he'd cleaned three times a day for five years, walking past the empty bathroom stalls, encouraged by the sound of a shower running.

"Tony?" he called out, his voice a strange combination of desperation and desire that he hoped wasn't as obvious as it sounded to him as it echoed through the tile enclosure.

"Bruce?" Tony called back, clearly perplexed, pulling back the thick white plastic shower curtain as Bruce stopped in front of it.

For a moment, they just stood there. Bruce wanted to say _something_ but he couldn't force any words out. No words would do. There was nothing to say to explain how he felt. He just... He wanted to mold himself against Tony until there was no space between them and he could feel directly what was in Bruce's heart.

And then, suddenly, before Bruce could even process what was happening, he leaned forward and Tony reached out for him and they were kissing. Instantly it was so intense it was nearly painful, Bruce's hands running down Tony's naked back as he held him as close as physically possible, feeling Tony's hands on the back of his neck, tangling and pulling in his hair, his goatee rough against his chin.

The hot spray of the shower soaked him as his forward momentum pushed Tony back against the wall of the stall and Tony slid his knee between Bruce's legs so that he groaned, hands gripping Tony's ass as he pressed their hips together. Tony's fingers slipped down his chest to his waistband, fumbling with the button in the limited space between their bodies.

"Fucking A," Tony muttered against Bruce's lips in frustration, snapping Bruce out of his momentary lust-induced frenzy, and he realized he could get in so much shit for doing this here if they got caught.

"Let's go back to my place," he murmured back, tasting the water on Tony's lips with his tongue with each word pressed to his bottom lip.

Tony laughed and the feel of it reverberating in his chest pressed tight against Bruce's own made Bruce grin even though he didn't know what Tony was laughing at and he was a little nervous that Tony might still say no.

"Okay," he finally agreed and Bruce felt his heart race at Tony's acceptance and he kissed him hard one more time before he stepped out of the shower.

Bruce tried to wring out his shirt a little and he raked his hands back through his wet hair while Tony threw on a t-shirt and some jersey knit shorts. He grabbed his bag and they walked awkwardly together through the darkness towards his trailer – close, but carefully not touching. And with each step Bruce felt doubt creeping back in.

Despite the fact that he allowed himself to believe that Tony was into him, Bruce also hadn't expected him to be quite so enthusiastic. He expected to have to say something, to explain himself, to let him know that this was no strings attached, a one time deal. Surely Tony was smart enough to figure that out... right? He didn't want to hurt Tony if he expected literally anything from him because he had nothing to offer.

Bruce unlocked the trailer and stepped in, not bothering to turn on the light as Tony shut and locked the door behind him, setting his bag down on the counter. He turned to Tony, reservation painted all over his face and Tony stepped forward, putting a hand on his neck, thumb on his cheek, looking him straight in the eye, communicating without words that he wanted _this_ , he wanted _him_. And slowly he leaned forward and kissed Bruce again, softer than before, waiting for him to open his mouth and allow him inside.

It wasn't long before he warmed up again as Tony kissed him and his doubts fell away as his libido took over. And this was better, this gentleness, it felt more natural between them. And when Tony slipped the button on his pants he felt his whole chest tighten with anticipation and he couldn't breathe and it felt amazing.

They stumbled backwards towards the bedroom as Tony tried to help him get out of his wet clothes, stopping in the doorway so Bruce could throw them in the bathroom. Tony felt warm and good against Bruce's cold skin and he relished in removing his t-shirt and shorts and letting them fall on the floor, feeling Tony's hot skin directly against his.

Together they fell on the bed, a tangle of limbs and lips and it had been so long he didn't even mind just this. Hands exploring, hips grinding, the thrill of each uninhibited gasp against his lips and the shiver up his spine as Tony's dick slid alongside his.

"I want you," Tony eventually whispered as he moved Bruce's hand along his hip to his ass, giving him explicit permission and Bruce felt his gut twist, suddenly overwhelmed.

"It's been awhile," Bruce warned him and Tony laughed and instead of feeling more anxious at that reaction, it relieved him.

"For me too," Tony admitted and Bruce chuckled as he turned to the end table for lube and the optimistic pack of condoms he'd stored there.

"You don't have to lie," he joked as he turned back and Tony's face was flushed in the moonlight, amusement clear in his eyes.

"I like you – I'll preserve your pride," Tony teased back as he pushed at his shoulder, directing him onto his back so he could straddle his hips.

Bruce felt like his heart might burst as he looked up at Tony grinning down at him and he knew then that it was going to be hard to separate this good moment from the disappointment that would follow when Tony eventually left. This just felt so good, so right, and he... His throat constricted and he could hardly swallow but he reached up for Tony to kiss him one more time and Tony leaned down to indulge him.

Then Tony slid the bottle of lube into his hand and with a hesitant, lopsided smile asked, "will you?"

Bruce agreed easily, pouring some in his hand and indicating that Tony should slide up a bit and he did until he was nearly on his chest.

Carefully Bruce fingered him, watching his facial expression for any sign of discomfort as he worked at him but Tony practically melted under his touch, relaxing against him. It surprised and delighted Bruce, the trust, the eagerness, the way his mouth fell open a little as he panted, tongue on his lower lip, the way his hips moved, pushing back against his fingers, eager for more.

Bruce was painfully hard by the time he reached for the condom, ripping the little foil packet with this teeth. Tony took it from him, sliding himself off Bruce's fingers to shimmy back down and slip it on him, causing him to gasp, his hips to jerk upward unbidden at the friction. But Tony didn't laugh, just braced his hand on his chest, holding his dick steady behind him as he lowered himself down on it.

" _Fuck_ ," Bruce groaned as his head was enveloped in tight heat, Tony slowly taking him in inch by inch as Bruce's hands supported his hips.

Tony laughed now though – a breathy, airy thing – as he settled down completely, taking a moment to adjust. And Bruce leaned up on his elbow, reaching up to rest his hand on the base of Tony's neck, his thumb on the dip between his collarbones, wanting to imprint the way he looked just then forever in his memory.

While Tony braced himself with one hand against Bruce's chest the other he placed over Bruce's hand, holding it there against his throat as slowly he began to move. Bruce could hardly breath, panting in tiny breaths and Tony moaned out curses under his breath. After a few thrusts he pushed Bruce down on his back and steadied himself with both hands on his chest, riding him harder.

Bruce let him, worshipping Tony's torso with his hands, running them down it, stroking him, feeling the sweat on his body and the way his muscles tensed. Tony was gorgeous. He was more than Bruce was worth.

He stopped Tony with his hands on his hips, pressing him down into his lap and Tony looked at him, bright eyes curious. Bruce shifted himself, half sitting up, supporting Tony's back with one hand and the back of his neck with the other as he lifted him up and twisted him back into the bed.

They laughed at their lack of grace and Bruce kissed him breathlessly, sweaty hair falling over Tony's face, lips tracing all over Tony's face as he thrust with swallow little thrusts.

"Bruce," Tony moaned as he sucked at Tony's neck, making him grin at hearing his name said like that. "God, _Bruce_."

Tony put a hand on either side of his neck, forcing Bruce to look him in the eyes. He felt uncomfortable with such direct attention but he didn't look away.

"Fuck me," he breathed, drawing him down to reconnect their lips as Bruce followed his command.

He buried his forehead against Tony's shoulder as he sped up, feeling him moan, feeling the sweat on his skin and feeling his body contract until the friction was more than Bruce could bear and he came, muffling his cry in Tony's skin.

But he only gave himself a moment to recover before sliding down Tony's body, trailing his lips down his abs, taking his swollen cock in his mouth. Tony gave an unbelievably delicious cry of disbelief as his hands reached for Bruce's hair, twisting his fingers in it, struggling not to hold him down or thrust too hard up into his mouth.

It only took Bruce a moment before Tony was coming too, prolonging the thrill of Bruce's own orgasm with the unadulterated cry of pleasure that fell from his lips.

For one selfish moment he nuzzled his face into Tony's stomach, feeling the flutter and twitch of his muscles as they relaxed, listening to his heavy breathing and Tony indulged him, running his fingers through his hair. But Bruce knew it was better not to let himself get too caught up in it and he stood, disappearing to the bathroom to get rid of the condom and wash his hands.

He didn't look in the mirror, he didn't look at anything, he just wanted this to be it, to go to sleep and not ruin any part of this perfect night with thoughts or feelings or negativity.

When he walked back into the bedroom Tony was standing and Bruce tried not to let his heart sink. This was, after all, no strings attached. It only made sense that Tony would leave. He used the bathroom as Bruce debated whether or not to put something on or to go to bed or just stand there awkwardly or what. Thankfully he didn't have to wait long and Tony walked back into the bedroom and paused when he saw him standing there, looking lost.

"I hope you're not expecting me to go back to that tent tonight," Tony said and though Bruce was sure Tony would do that if that _was_ what he had expected, Bruce simply tried to contain the smile that threatened to break out over his face as he looked down at the bed and pulled back the sheets.

"Oh, this is much worse," he warned as they crawled into bed together, Tony laying flat on his back as Bruce slid up to him, tucking himself up against his body shamelessly, desperate for this kind of affection and warmth.

"No," Tony murmured as he settled the covers over them, turning slightly to his side so that he could press his lips against the top of Bruce's head. "This is much better."


	16. Chapter 16

When Tony awoke it was soft and gentle, his mind slowly coming to behind closed eyelids he had no intention of opening. Bruce had shifted away from him in the night but he could still feel his presence next to him, his chest beneath one of his arms, rising and falling gently, still asleep. Tony had slept deeper than he had in months – even when he'd stayed at hotels or with friends. Surely it was the weed and the sex but there was a feeling of safety here in Bruce's home – be that what it may – that he knew contributed, though he didn't want to think about it too hard.

Finally the discomfort of having to go to the bathroom convinced him to open his eyes and he gazed across the pillow at Bruce on his back, hair a tangled mess from being soaked twice and not combed through, mouth parted slightly, long eyelashes resting on his cheeks, completely relaxed. Tony couldn't help but smile into the pillow as he thought about the night before, how adoring Bruce had been, how honest. The fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach would have to go but for the moment Tony reveled in it, letting it send pleasant little vibrations all the way to his toes. This was stupid and untenable in the long term but it made him happy – at least, right now.

Tony tried to leave the bed as slowly and quietly as possible so as not to disturb Bruce as he got up to use the bathroom, splashing some cold water in his face and wishing he'd had a toothbrush – then remembering his toiletry bag was in the kitchen. He retrieved it, brushing his teeth and heading to the bedroom to climb back into bed with Bruce. Though he wasn't the kind of person who would admit to being a cuddler, he sure wasn't going to turn his nose up at Bruce's affection either.

It was clear that he had woken Bruce up and he reached out for him, nuzzling his face against Tony's neck in way that sent a shiver down his spine as he held him back, slipping one leg between Bruce's until they were comfortably slotted together.

"Admit it," Bruce murmured into his skin, causing goosebumps to rise on Tony's flesh, "you only spent the night so I could make you breakfast."

Tony huffed out a laugh and wanted to kiss the shit out of him but he also didn't want to move. "You caught me."

Bruce laughed back, muffled by Tony's neck as he kissed at it, trailing his mouth to his earlobe, nipping the sensitive spot. He could feel Bruce's dick hard against his thigh and he ran a hand through Bruce's hair, holding his head close as Bruce left marks across his neck.

"You only let me spend the night so you could have your way with me this morning," Tony teased back and Bruce paused, pulling back to look at him for a minute and gauge whether he was being serious or not, eyes wide and concerned – and it was the cutest thing Tony had ever seen.

Finally Bruce grinned. "Your bed head is so sexy," he said as he slipped himself back up along Tony's body, kissing at his adam's apple as his hand slid down to Tony's hip. "I can't help myself."

"You're one to talk," Tony gasped, trailing off weakly, eyes closing and lips curling into a smile as Bruce slid his hand around them both, stroking them off together.

He moaned Bruce's name, running his hands up his back, holding him close. And he moaned it again as he tucked his head down, kissing Bruce's face, seeking out his lips. And he moaned it against Bruce's lips as he came, unable to withstand the intensity of his lovemaking, feeling Bruce come with him.

Bruce kissed him like a precious thing, slowly and carefully and intimately as they wound down from the high together. And Tony soaked up every minute, each lavished kiss a salve to all the years he spent alone, disappointed and hurt by the people who were meant to love him. He couldn't understand how Bruce had so much to give.

"I'm going to take a shower and start breakfast," Bruce murmured against his mouth, pushing him back into the bed. "Relax. I know it's been awhile since you've been in a real bed."

"Yes sir," Tony replied amiably as he settled in against the pillow, watching Bruce's naked body leave the room through half-closed eyes.

He dozed, their cum drying on his stomach, feeling wonderful, feeling like in this place nothing could hurt him. It was a ruse, he knew, and that as soon as he left this bed everything bad would come crowding back to suffocate him, but until then he was content. Even more than that – he was happy.

Consciousness returned when he heard Bruce in the kitchen, moving pans, and he realized he must've fallen into a deeper sleep than he'd intended. The sizzle of bacon dropping into a pan got him moving though and he showered quickly, combing his wet hair with pomade and reclaiming the clothes he'd walked over in last night from the floor.

The smell of bacon frying permeated the whole trailer and Tony realized then that he was starving, sliding into the bench seat in the kitchen where a pot of black tea waited for him with the same little floral cup from the first time he'd sat there. It seemed like eons ago even though it had only been a little over a month.

"So what's your grudge against coffee?" Tony asked as he poured himself a cup of tea.

Bruce chuckled as he flipped hashbrowns – hand made, if the grater on the counter was any indication.

"I don't have a _grudge_ against coffee." Bruce shrugged. "I just never developed a taste for it."

"But you did for dark beer?" Tony pointed out skeptically, watching Bruce crack eggs into a bowl one handed.

"What can I say? I wanted to like beer," Bruce replied and Tony grinned as he cut him some slack and just watched him.

Tony knew it was some stupid sentimental bullshit but it was so easy, he felt like he could watch Bruce all day. The broad line of Bruce's shoulders moving confidently across his space, no move wasted as he reached for this utensil or plated that. He had slept with a lot of people over the years – friends and strangers – and even spent the night, drinking coffee in bed the next morning... but no one had ever made him feel like this.

Bruce set a plate in front of him, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, hash browns, a little cup of yogurt and berries in the center of the plate and Tony almost felt like blushing. This was ridiculous.

"Do you always cook like this? For yourself?" Tony asked as Bruce sat down across from him, pouring himself tea.

"I'm not by myself," he pointed out so matter of fact that Tony didn't clarify the question and instead asked –

"How come you don't have a boyfriend?"

"I don't want one," Bruce replied, completely flat, as he picked up a forkful of eggs and potatoes. "Not to mention, only someone living in a tent would be impressed by this place."

Tony laughed as he picked up his fork too, catching Bruce's smile as he looked back down at his plate.

For a moment they ate in silence, both hungry after last night, Tony savoring every bite. Regardless of what he seemed to want, Bruce was totally boyfriend material. Awful sense of humor, great cook, amazing in bed. It was like the golden trifecta of perfect boyfriend. Not that it mattered. As much as Bruce didn't want a boyfriend, Tony couldn't have one.

"I'm going to see my sister today," Bruce spoke at last, "after I finish my rounds. Which I'm incredibly late for." Not that he seemed terribly concerned.

"Didn't Clint text you?" Tony asked, looking up and Bruce kind of sighed, nodding towards the counter.

"Maybe?" Tony realized there was a Tupperware full of rice sitting on the counter. "Kind of wrecked my phone last night. In the shower."

Tony laughed, feeling strangely flattered that Bruce was so impassioned he didn't even consider his phone.

"He said last night that he'd get your rounds today so you didn't have to stress about it," Tony explained and this look came over Bruce's face that Tony could only describe as disbelief.

"Did you ask him to?" he questioned defensively, like he was ready to be upset with him but Tony shook his head.

"Nah it was his own idea," Tony answered honestly. "He likes you, you know. Everyone feels bad about what happened."

"I don't want that," Bruce murmured, seeming embarrassed and Tony felt bad that he put him in that position but he deserved to know people cared about him – even if he didn't want them to.

Tony let it go as they finished eating, knowing that when they were done the spell would be broken and this would become awkward and weird. He didn't want that – but that was the nature of one night stands. And they both knew that was what this really was.

But before Bruce finished his plate he paused to reach into his pocket, pulling out a singular key on a ring and setting it on the table between them. Tony looked at it cautiously before looking up at Bruce, who refused to move his eyes from his plate.

"I thought you could stay, if you wanted. I know the tent must get uncomfortable," Bruce explained. "Just lock up before you leave and give me the key next time we run into each other."

"Really?"

Bruce shrugged, finishing the last bite on his plate before standing and carrying it over to the sink without looking at him once.

Tony stared at the key for a moment, humbled by that level of trust, and picked it up and put it in his own pocket. "Thanks."

"I should go," Bruce said, voice sounding tight and anxious. "Just – put your plate in the sink?"

Although he was inclined to let Bruce go without saying anything more because this whole thing was kind of weird and he wasn't exactly sure what to say, at the last minute he stood, catching Bruce by the arm and forcing him to turn and look at him.

"I'll go too," he offered, watching complicated emotions flit across Bruce's face.

Bruce didn't answer, though Tony knew what his answer was. And although it was a one night stand, they kissed goodbye like it wasn't, and Tony knew that kind of kiss was only going to make it harder in the end.

But he resolved to shove it out of his mind for the time being and sat to finish the last few bites of his breakfast, listening to the Jeep pull away before he shifted into gear.

Immediately he left, locking the trailer and walking back to his tent, figuring he had a good four hours before Bruce would be back and it might take him three to lug back all his camera equipment. He knew his investment in this project was waning, his father was going to die soon, and he felt badly for the Johnsons but there was no monster out here. It was true Tony had seen things that made him skeptical – objects rearranged with no explanation, shadows in mirrors, candles going out where there was no wind, inexplicable sounds and horrific stories. But besides the weirdly murdered deer, nothing here was strange. No one who worked here thought there was some monster roaming the mountain. The Johnsons were grasping at straws.

He changed and drove his car out to the parking lot at the beginning of the White Pine trail, grabbed his bag and began the long walk back up to the dump site. It was a little quicker this time as he had a more accurate GPS trail but it still took over an hour for him to reach the site and then he had to cut down his cameras, pack them carefully, and head back.

Tony was tired and sweaty by the time he loaded up his car but when he drove by and noticed Bruce's Jeep still wasn't in the driveway he decided to park his own car at his tent and walk back and wait for him. Stupid, but he had a feeling Bruce was going to be wrecked when he returned and he wanted to be there for him.

Before he left he grabbed his laptop and the cards from the cameras, old habits dying hard, and walked back to Bruce's trailer to set up shop.

Although limited, the air conditioning still felt nice and he grabbed himself a beer from the fridge and booted up his laptop before going to the bathroom and rinsing his face in the sink. Then he settled in to review the footage and call Rhodey to check in.

"Yeah?" Rhodey's familiar, irritated voice was far more comforting to Tony than he expected and he grinned as he hit play on the video feed.

"Hey man, good to hear your voice. I just wanted to let you know I'll be home within the week."

"Hallelujah." Rhodey's sarcasm was tempered by genuine relief. "I'm serious, Pepper has already briefed the lawyers not to say shit until you come back but they'd be lucky to last 24 hours against Stane."

"No need to tell me," Tony scoffed and he could almost hear Rhodey roll his eyes.

"Look, I know you think –"

"I don't think anything," Tony growled, glaring at the computer monitor and fast forwarding through some raccoon on the rocks triggering the camera for a good fifteen minutes. "He threatened to kill me. And I'm sure he'd go through with it if he could find me."

"So come stay with me," Rhodey offered though there was a plaintive, long-suffering whine on the end.

"And sleep on the precinct couch?" Tony asked, huffing impatiently. "I know you think you're Superman buddy but you couldn't protect me by yourself. Besides –" he leaned back and glanced at the empty drive out the window, thinking of Bruce "– I've got some stuff to settle here if I've got the time."

"You got about twelve minutes," Rhodey muttered under his breath.

"Hey, speaking of –" Tony bypassed, completely ignoring Rhodey "– you wanna do me one last favor, for old times sake?"

"Not really," Rhodey said.

"There's this guy, Bruce Banner – maybe Robert, his mail all reads Robert Banner – his parents were killed when he was six."

" _Tony_."

"Look, this is my last job, okay? Give me this," he asked, rewinding the video because he hadn't been paying attention. "I just want to know what happened, you know? I'm pretty sure it was up here, North East, Vermont, maybe New York even, but I can't search newspapers if I don't know where he lived."

"And you can't just ask?" Rhodey replied skeptically as Tony paused the rewind, noticing a blip of something strange.

"Oh sure, 'please tell me how your parents were butchered in front of you,' that ought to go over great," Tony sighed, gesturing his frustration to no one as he replayed the tape.

"I'm not a personal police database."

"Well shit. Then why have I spent all these years putting up with you?" Tony joked but he didn't even hear Rhodey's reply because there on the screen was something he had never seen before.

If this wasn't bigfoot it was damn sure close. The thing was huge, hulking – it's eyes caught the camera and reflected bright beams of light. Although the footage wasn't great, the creature stood there for a minute, flopping down a deer, digging around near the stones and creating some kind of bed for it, as far as Tony could tell, before moving the carcass into the hole it had created.

Tony's heart was pounding. Never in a million years would he have expected to have irrefutable proof that a creature like this existed. It was unbelievable. The Maximoffs and their hokey grainy ghost videos would shit themselves over this. In fact, part of him wasn't sure he could even believe it. He would have to go through everything, check the other camera angles. Goddamn why was he getting out of this business _now_?

"Hey Rhodey thanks but I – I gotta go," he said, not even waiting for a reply as he sat the phone down and ended the call, eyes transfixed by the creature on the screen.

While he knew this couldn't really change anything – he was still heir to Stark Industries, still had to shut Obie down – proof like this? He had to make this public. The Johnsons, at least, deserved to know the truth.


	17. Chapter 17

Bruce gripped the steering wheel, twisting his hands on the leather, staring at the concrete of the parking deck, wishing Tony had come with him. He would never have asked him, but it made it easier to get out of the car when there was someone there watching him, forcing him out of the car.

It was kind of stupid – he didn't really think Betty would cast him aside for lying about where he lived. Besides, Leonard said they'd talked about it already. But the idea that she might be hurt by him, upset with him... Bruce had never meant for her to know. He had only ever been motivated by his desire to protect her.

Then again, he knew that if he didn't go in there now he _would_ hurt her. They had agreed to it, she was expecting him. Bruce glanced quickly at the last text he'd received from Leonard with her new floor and room number and took a deep breath before opening the door. He just had to remember that talking to Betty inevitably made him feel better – even if it was difficult at first.

On his passenger seat there was a plastic bag full of different candy bars he picked up at the gas station on the way in that he grabbed as he locked the doors and headed to the elevator. He clenched the bag tightly as he walked across the patient drop off and into the hospital. Emotions he'd managed to keep tamped down for the past week suddenly broke free as he walked back through those halls. All he could see was her body, broken and comatose, pale and unmoving but for the rhythmic rise and fall of the machine breathing for her.

He swallowed hard – again, and again, trying to contain the feelings overwhelming him. It was too much – it had all been too much. Ever since Tony got there – Tony on his stupid fucking quest to expose him. He couldn't keep it in check, everything he was feeling, the fear of what he was, of everything he had to lose. Hell, if it hadn't been for Tony, he never would've shown up here in the first place and Betty would never have known he lived here. If it hadn't been for Tony, his cover would still be intact.

But... was that really better?

He had to remain convinced that this could be good, too. It could be. He wasn't going to hurt her.

When he finally found her room, the door was open. She was propped up in bed, staring out the window at a limited square of sky. The IV was still there, bandages and casts, staples across her shaved head. But she was sitting up. And when she heard him approach she turned her head and smiled.

Truthfully his relationship with Betty was the longest love affair he had ever had in his life. And to see her smile at him again – after so long, after seeing her wrecked and comatose – his heart started pounding in his chest and a matching grin fluttered across his face as well.

Bruce stood in front of the bed awkwardly, wanting to hug her while simultaneously being afraid to touch her. She moved her arm – the whole thing was in a cast but her fingers were free – and he reached out to hold her hand. He hardly noticed the way his eyes teared up – all he could see was her.

"I'm glad you came," she said, breaking the silence at last, her voice soft and a little rough.

"I'm sorry," he replied, the only conscious thought in his brain, as if those two words could come close to covering everything that happened in the past five years. "I'm sorry."

Betty didn't even seem to acknowledge him though. "Sit down. Leonard hasn't been by yet today and I'm lonely." He pulled the chair over but she caught sight of the plastic bag. "Wait – what's in the bag?"

Bruce chuckled self-consciously and handed it over, setting it in her lap as her other, relatively undamaged arm reached for it. Her eyes lit up when she saw the contents, smiling as she clutched the bag to her stomach.

"No one brings me chocolate," she sighed as Bruce sat down next to her, watching her intently as she collected her thoughts.

"Sorry," she apologized. "My head is still so floaty – it's hard to think."

"It's okay," Bruce immediately replied. "You don't have to say anything at all."

Betty smiled as she looked down at him, but it seemed sad, and Bruce was immediately filled with anxiety. He knew she was going to broach the subject he desperately hoped she'd just let go.

"You were always a very private kid, you know?" she started, looking down at her hand on the plastic bag. "I mean, I get why, now, but – Mom was always getting on to me about getting into your personal space."

"Really?" Bruce asked, surprised. He never really remembered it that way. He had always been thankful for her interest and involvement – it kept him from collapsing in on himself.

"Yeah. You don't remember that? I snuck into your room almost every night after bed to talk to you. I was just so happy to have a brother." She laughed, a breathy little exhale. "But now I regret that I never learned how to respect your privacy enough that you didn't feel like you had to hide from me as an adult."

"No," Bruce answered, throat constricting as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. "It's not – I just. I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me?" she asked, and he could tell she was close to crying too. "You didn't think it would hurt me to find out you lived so close but didn't want to see me?"

"I did _want_ to see you," Bruce tried to explain, wishing she could just understand. "You weren't supposed to find out."

" _Bruce_ ," she said, soft voice full of anguish, like she didn't want to believe what he'd just said.

"You don't understand," he pleaded. "I – I hurt people."

"You had nothing to do with your parents' deaths."

Betty's voice was barely a whisper, just a breath, and Bruce swallowed hard, turning his face away so she wouldn't see him cry.

"You can't blame yourself forever," she continued, a little stronger, but he couldn't look at her. "You were just a kid."

 _Just a kid._

The words echoed in his head. Just a kid. Taylor Johnson was just a kid. That – that _thing_ that he was had killed him in cold blood. He wasn't a kid any more – he was just a murderer.

There was silence between them for a minute as Bruce tried desperately to gather himself, to repress those horrible memories, to bury them deep down where he could live with them. But it was hard – getting harder every time he was forced to drag them out. He couldn't live like this but he couldn't die either.

When Betty finally broke the silence again her voice sounded as though it was coming from very far away and Bruce wiped at his eyes, looking over at her, facing the window again, staring out at the sky as she spoke

"You used to say you could remember nothing about that day, nothing but the social worker, not even my father. And I used to think – how could that be? Nothing? _Really_?" She shook her head just slightly, eyes still trained on that invisible place in the distance. "But now I think I kind of understand. I can hardly remember anything about that day. Just stupid stuff like making coffee, grabbing my keys off the hook, looking at my manuscript in the passenger seat, the way I had a million times before. I don't... I don't even remember dropping Jude off at mom's. What if – what if I forgot to tell him I loved him?" Her voice cracked a little and her eyes fell to the side. "He won't remember but what kind of mother would I have been if my last words to my son weren't 'I love you?'"

For an instant Bruce was paralyzed in time, remembering his mother lying there on the floor, blood pooling under her head, how desperately he wanted her to say something – _anything_. What he wouldn't have given to have heard 'I love you' one last time. Fuck – Jude was so unbelievably lucky to have that chance.

"Don't," Bruce said, repeating the same words he'd told Tony last night when he snapped out of it, growing stronger as she grew more uncertain. "Trust me, you can't let thoughts like that rule your life." She nodded, although she didn't seem particularly convinced. "It'll be better when you're out of here."

She huffed. "I believe _that_."

"Not enjoying your stay at Hotel du Hospital?" Bruce asked in a mock French accent with a sideways grin, glad to change the topic.

Betty rolled her eyes. "Well, they do bring me all the soup and jello I could ever want but the accommodations leave something to be desired. I mean – just look at the view."

Though Bruce chuckled, Betty remained serious, looking out the window. He could see the tremor in her jaw and the wrinkles at her eyes from wincing.

"When do you leave?" he asked softly and she lifted a shaking hand to her face to try to hide it as she cried and his heart broke.

"They want me to leave next week," she confessed through painful sobs. "They say I'm stable so I might as well recover at home. But look at me! I can't do anything. I'm in so much pain. I can barely eat. I can't go to the bathroom by myself. They told me I could stay cathed at home and they said they'd teach Leonard how to – to insert it. How humiliating!" She was shaking so hard now he could hardly understand her. "Leonard can't take more time off work and even if they send a physical therapist, I still can't _do_ anything. I can't watch an almost two year old, I can't ask mom to watch him forever, who knows how long –"

"Betty," Bruce interrupted, grasping the fingers of her broken arm. "It's going to be okay. I'll talk to my boss, see if someone can cover my day rounds, I'll come help you out. You know I'd do anything for you." Slowly she looked at him, her face twisted and wet but cautiously optimistic. "I'll even carry you to the bathroom."

"Well I'm _not_ letting you cath me," she warned, laughing in a way that sounded like she was about to start sobbing again. "But – don't. You don't have to do that."

"I know," Bruce smiled, squeezing her fingers. "But I want to."

Suddenly there were footsteps in the room and they both turned to the door, watching Leonard enter with Jude, as Betty tried to wipe her face as quickly as possible so they wouldn't have to see her cry.

"I'm sorry," Leonard started immediately, looking ragged as hell as he set Jude down and his little legs carried him to his mom as fast as they could as Bruce watched on in fascination. "He's been crying for you all the morning."

"Hey buddy," she said softly, smiling down at him as he babbled happy incoherence with a few loud 'moms' thrown in for good measure. "I know I know."

Bruce had dropped his hand as soon as Leonard had walked in but was hesitant to pick up a child who didn't know him. Thankfully Leonard stepped forward, lifting him into the bed and setting him down next to her, directing him not to climb on her, though Jude clearly wanted to. Instead, he snuggled into her side, looking over at Bruce, suddenly noticing him and becoming shy, burying his face against her. In a gentle gesture Bruce waved just his fingers at him with a small but genuine smile and Jude smiled back, wide and bashful and he lifted his hand and waved the whole thing in a clumsy imitation.

"This is your uncle Bruce," Betty explained, sniffling a little as she pulled herself together. "You might be seeing a lot of him over the next few months."

Despite what Bruce had expected, Leonard actually perked up when he heard that, looking carefully between the two of them.

"If that's okay with you," Bruce stipulated and Leonard nodded rapidly, falling into the little plastic chair across from the end of the bed.

"Yeah. That would be great." He rubbed at his eyes, clearly exhausted. "Karen has told us she'll help out as much as she can too around her substituting schedule so you wouldn't be completely solo. You have no idea how much that would mean to me."

"Well, I have to talk to my boss, but I don't foresee it being an issue," Bruce admitted as a nurse walked in with a tray.

Jude ate a sandwich and fruit snacks Leonard had packed for him next to Betty as she slowly made it through the bowl of soup that was offered. Bruce had the feeling she probably didn't try to eat as hard as she did then when Leonard wasn't there. The frustrated face she made and the way her arm shook gave her away – but no one said anything. And when the nurse came to take away the tray, Jude was given a pacifier and little blanket shaped like a tiger and settled in next to his mom until they both fell asleep to the soft, inconsequential conversation between Bruce and Leonard.

Once they were asleep Leonard admitted how difficult things had been for the past week, confessing how exhausted he was trying to juggle Jude and Betty and Thad and Karen with all their various needs as well as take care of himself. And on top of that even though he technically had time off he kept getting urgent messages from his team about various levels of bullshit that supposedly only he knew. It made Bruce feel even more confident in his decision to talk to Steve about getting some time off during the week to help out even though it was going to be one of the most emotionally draining things he had done in a while. But Bruce found that he actually really liked Leonard – it didn't hurt that he seemed to have the same gripes about Betty's parents that he did and that he clearly loved Betty as much as Bruce did too.

Eventually though they woke up and Leonard and Jude had to leave. Bruce offered to stay around awhile given the way her face completely crumpled when they were gone but she insisted he leave, explaining that at night was when they did all the awful really embarrassing things like try to help her wash herself up a little and recath her if she needed it.

So Bruce relented, wrapping his arms gently around her and kissing the top of her head goodbye in an uncharacteristically sentimental gesture for him. But he figured if he was going to go around confronting his emotions after over twenty years, then Betty more than anyone deserved the confession.

The drive home was long. He was tired, hungry, and drained. He couldn't think beyond just getting back to his bed even though he knew he'd regret it later when he woke up sick with hunger but the thought of eating take out turned his stomach worse than the looming threat of a sugar crash. Maybe he could force himself through a bowl of cereal.

If he was completely honest with himself – which he usually was, much to his own disservice – he wanted Tony to be there when he got back. He wanted the distraction, the warmth of his body. He wanted to not feel alone. He wanted something to stop him from sinking into the sadness that would envelop him as soon as he walked into that trailer. It was his home, yes, but it was also his cage. He could never leave.

And it was stupid that it was Tony but – he made him feel better. Less alone. Because some part of him believed in Bruce's existence – as Bruce and as that... thing. And no one else in the world – besides the family of a boy he murdered – believed in him.

Bruce rested his head on the steering wheel when he got back, rubbing at his eyes and preparing himself for the inevitable disappointment of a lonely trailer and force fed meal alone. It didn't used to be this bad. Nothing used to be like this – not before Tony.

He forced himself from the car but when he reached the door he couldn't help but test it optimistically, a jolt of surprise and pleasure shooting through him when he found it unlocked. Still, he opened the door slowly to temper his expectations, trying not to grin when he saw Tony hunched over his laptop, typing away furiously.

Immediately he shut the computer, standing as Bruce entered, this confusing look of excitement and uncertainty warring on his face. Then Bruce noticed the stove was on and there was a painful amount of dishes in the sink but still – he couldn't be upset if he tried.

"I – Bruce! How did it go?" Tony started, exuding nervousness, Bruce's lips twitching upwards as he approached at the volley of words he knew were going to fall from Tony's mouth. "I – I hope you don't mind. I was doing some work. But really – I thought I would try to make dinner? I figured you'd be back late and you know – I wanted to return the favor. But the thing is – I can't really cook. But I thought maybe I could make some kind of casserole or like baked pasta? Because that takes a while. But – ha. I found a recipe – so that was good. But I'm pretty sure I just –"

Bruce cut him off as he walked straight into him, tucking his face up against his neck, breathing in the scent of him, reaching for his shirt and twisting it in his fingers. And though Tony was clearly startled, he recovered quickly, wrapping his arms around him. One pulling him closer around his chest and the other burying itself in his hair, scratching at his scalp and pulling through the curls and god – it felt amazing. It was everything Bruce wanted in that moment – everything he needed. Just the consideration of another human being, thinking of him – it was more than he ever dared hope for for a monster such as him.

"Are you going to stay the night?" he mumbled against Tony's skin, scared of the answer and embarrassed that he was practically begging.

"Yeah," Tony replied effortlessly, just a breath, before grasping a fistful of his hair and turning his head gently to the side so that he could slip his lips down to kiss him.


	18. Chapter 18

The sun was starting to set as Tony packed up the last of the tent, throwing the stakes into the bag with a loud, satisfying clink. His car was already over at Bruce's. They had decided that he would just stay there until he got the call from Rhodey that he had to leave so that he didn't have to deal with packing everything up. And, of course, so that they could spend the little time they had together as together as they ever would be – though neither of them said that.

Which was in large part why he didn't tell Bruce about the Green Mountain Monster. He wrote his report while Bruce was out of the trailer, set up a tentative meeting with the Johnson's for Friday when Bruce would be out most of the day helping his sister, and decided to publish the article when he got back to New York so Bruce couldn't try to talk him out of it.

The thing was – Bruce was a private person. He didn't like the whole monster thing to begin with. If Tony published this article to his highly trafficked blog, paranormal hunters from all over would eventually begin making their way to the park to corroborate his findings. They would dig through the murder over and over, interview employees, visit Bruce and dig through his world in a much more invasive way than Tony had. And while he didn't really want to do that to Bruce, he also didn't see how he could just ignore this video. This was _huge_. This was the triumph of the career he was about to retire from – the crowning piece in his collection. Although he often considered himself more of a skeptic than a believer, he dedicated his entire twenties to becoming the preeminent expert in this profession and he wanted something to show for it. This was _it_.

Tony sighed and ran his hands back through his hair as he thought back to their first few abrasive interactions. It was really gonna suck for Bruce though.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to see it was Rhodey and he took a quick breath to center himself. He never really knew what Rhodey was going to say, but this could be it, and he still hadn't really come to terms with the idea of going home and confronting Obie and burying his father.

"What's up?" he asked cautiously and Rhodey kind of chuckled.

"It's not time," he started, immediately putting Tony at ease. "It's just – I finally found this Banner guy. You didn't tell me it was cold case – spent entirely too long looking through the wrong databases."

Something about hearing the words "cold case" made Tony's blood run cold and he felt like he was on the edge of learning something he really didn't want to know but it was too late – there was no looking away.

"I didn't know," Tony answered, voice distant.

"Well, it's a weird-ass case buddy, I wish I could show you the file." Tony could hear paper flipping in the background. "According to the report, the woman – the victim's mother – was clearly killed by her husband. She had pretty typical bruising patterns for physical abuse, not all of them new either. The fatal injury was a skull impact with a brick fireplace. That's not the weird part; unfortunately we see cases like this all the time."

"Jesus," Tony muttered, trying to focus on what Rhodey was saying, but thinking about Bruce having to watch his father kill his mother was more than he could bear.

Tony had dealt with the loss of his mother, of course, and now was dealing with his father. But it was nothing like _that_. Somehow he had imagined there was a break in or something, a third party. Knowing that Bruce had to watch his father routinely beat his mother until he killed her made him feel sick. But so many things about Bruce and how private and guarded and untrusting he was made sense now – and Tony hated it.

"But the thing is," Rhodey continued, "the victim's father? He was pushed four feet up through the drywall. The pictures are insane. The body is literally stuck in there. His ribs were cracked, huge bruises on his skin that that don't look like they could be made by anything human but clearly weren't inflicted by an instrument. When they finally got the body out of there, he was actually strangled to death, by a vice bigger than a human hand. This report reads like some of the bullshit on your website."

Tony literally started shaking. Maybe, if he hadn't been so invested in this case now, if he hadn't just reread over Taylor Johnson's autopsy, all of this wouldn't sound so familiar. But it did.

"And that's why this is a cold case – because at the scene there was nothing but one traumatized little boy," Rhodey went on, unaware of Tony's growing horror. "You were right – his name was in the system as Robert – no one really knows how long he sat there. He wouldn't say anything, not for like a week after the incident, and then when he finally did, he claimed he couldn't remember anything. Even after months of therapy. They never found another suspect – no sign of breaking and entering, nothing out of the ordinary from the neighbors. The whole thing's a mess."

"Thanks, Rhodey." The words were thick, forced from his throat as he sat down on the tent, unable to stand under the weight of the implications any longer.

"Hey – you okay man?" Rhodey had apparently finally noticed the strain in his voice but Tony definitely did not want to talk about this with him. At least not right now.

"Yeah. I – we'll talk about it when I get home," Tony suggested and Rhodey didn't push it.

"See you soon."

Tony hung up the phone without even looking at it and let his hands drop between his knees. He didn't want to think about the most obvious explanation but it was like a train wreck and he couldn't look away. How guarded Bruce was, how at every step he tried to dissuade him, how he wanted to be the point of contact so that he could dispel any suspicion Tony had, how he reacted to the dead deer at the dump site, how emotional he was about Taylor Johnson's death.

He killed Taylor Johnson, he killed his father, and he killed who knows how many other people.

Bruce _was_ the Green Mountain Monster.

Tony started to laugh. It bordered on hysterical. The whole idea of it – it was too ridiculous. Even for him. Ghosts? Okay. The lingering energy of the dead – sure. At least that seemed possible to him – energy couldn't be created or destroyed so why wouldn't it hang around where it spent the most time? But a – a monster? A – whatever that thing was on the video? Could a person really transform into that? Like a fucking werewolf or whatever?

He didn't want to believe it – he really, really didn't. But what other explanation was there? God. That sounded fucking stupid even in his head but...

He had to know. He just... He had to know.

Tony stood, grabbing the tent and walking back towards Bruce's trailer with single-minded determination. He would try to deny it, Tony was sure. Bruce had denied everything related to this case from the get go so he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to get him to confess now except... he had video evidence. Thankfully he had backed it up in case Bruce tried to destroy it, which he was sure he would do, knowing Bruce.

Fuck – this was fucked up, Tony thought. He couldn't believe he was really going to ask the guy he sucked off last night if he was a monster. Internally Tony groaned. This was so fucking stupid. What if, despite all the evidence, it wasn't true? The problem was, though that should have been easier for Tony to believe, now it wasn't.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even notice the person following him until he was halfway to Bruce's trailer, taking the relative "short cut" through a long section of dense trees. But once he was off the road through the campsites it became obvious and sudden fear overtook him completely. Trying to convince himself it was nothing he slowed down but the other person only closed the gap without saying anything and without passing him and then he knew – he was fucked. This wasn't some kind of coincidence. This was Obie.

For five years he dreaded this day, for five years he'd lived in fear. And fucking Bruce and this stupid case distracted him so badly that he let himself be put in this position. He tried to calm down – really he did. Surely Obie didn't know where he was, surely he wouldn't really send someone to _kill_ him – right? There was only so much crazy that could happen to one person within the span of fifteen minutes. This has to be all in his head – right? Right?

Right, he told himself, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly as Bruce's trailer came into view through the trees. This wasn't happening.

He turned quickly, yelling loud enough that Bruce would hear and hoping to every god he knew the name of that he was actually in the trailer –

"What the _fuck_ , asshole?!"

The man stopped only short a few feet of him and grinned. He was dressed rather casually for an assassin – a black hoodie with a big pocket he had a hand hidden suspiciously in and jeans but then Tony had never met an actual assassin before and maybe at another time he would've laughed at the mental image he conjured in that moment of a man rocking some black ninja garb but just now it only made him feel maniacal and off kilter.

"Tony Stark?" he asked.

"What's it to you?" he shot back, heaving the tent bag and throwing it as hard as possible into the man.

He didn't really give a shit if he was overreacting. Adrenaline was pounding through his veins and the only thing on his mind at that moment was the gun over Bruce's door and making sure he fucking reached it. He pivoted on his feet as his hand released the bag and didn't even bother to look back, hearing the thump and the exhale of air as it hit the other man.

But unfortunately for Tony he only made it a couple feet before he found himself flat on his face on the ground, nose buried in fucking foliage, ankle throbbing from where it got twisted in a tree root. He cursed, pain exploding up his leg as he tried to stand, getting halfway up, propelling himself forward another few feet with his good leg while screaming Bruce's name with the little bit of air he'd managed to reclaim before he fell again as the pain paralyzed him.

God he was _fucked_.

He struggled to get up again and at least try force himself along in a crawl but then choked as piano wire wrapped tight around his throat, eyes bulging in surprise, hands clawing frantically at his neck and back to the hands holding the string.

"No more of that shit," the man hissed in his ear as he strung him up on his knees and Tony couldn't believe this was it.

Five fucking years hiding across the country from Obie and this was it. Less than a week away from claiming the company that was rightfully his and he was going to be murdered a five hours away from home in a forest only a couple hundred feet from anyone who could help him.

His eyes cast desperately for Bruce's trailer, wanting to scream and scream and scream but he couldn't make anything other than a choking sound and then –

 _Bruce_.

Their eyes met, Tony's desperate and frantic and begging, _pleading_ – please fucking _help me_!

And Bruce? All Tony could see in his eyes was rage. If he'd had any breath left, Bruce would've taken it away.

Then, before Tony even fully realized what was happening, before the assassin even looked up to see that Bruce had joined them, he began to change.

It was weird and disgusting and under completely different circumstances Tony might have been grossed out or fascinated or something but considering he was fairly certain he was turning blue and only moments from passing out all he could think was _thank fucking god_.

Bruce changed in what couldn't have been more than ten seconds – his muscles and bones stretching, clothes tearing, skin darkening into this disturbing shade of green and finally the other man heard it and looked up, fingers slackening just enough to allow Tony one glorious tiny breath as the assassin muttered a clearly startled "what the _fuck_?"

The monster that Bruce had changed into lifted it's head and yowled this horrible, frightening cry of heartache and pain and it closed the distance between them in a wildly short span of time, huge hands grasping for the man choking the life out of Tony, ripping them apart roughly and slamming him into the ground. Tony coughed and gasped as he drug himself bodily by his arms out from under the monster, curling up protectively against a tree as he choked and coughed and clutched at his neck and watched in fascination as that monster that was Bruce crushed the life out of the man who had been trying to kill him.

His ribcage was broken, his body a limp sack of flesh in mere moments, and the monster dropped it on the ground, whipping its head towards Tony, brows furrowed with a look of what he could only describe as – as _concern_ written on its face. It stepped towards him and Tony tried not to cower but he hunched his shoulders protectively, hoping that he was right, hoping that that thing recognized him, that there was something of Bruce in there enough to know not to hurt him because there was nothing he could do, no defense against _that_.

But it only reached out gently with one finger, poking him clumsily in the chest, trying to reach under his chin and tilt his face up so that their eyes met again. And Tony lifted his head cautiously to help, looking up into the massive eyes of that monster – the same eyes he saw on video only a few days ago reflecting back the light from the moon – but now? All he could see was Bruce. Those same big brown eyes, huge with fear and concern and... love? Or maybe Tony was just deluded, exhausted and scared and in pain.

The monster grunted, seeming be satisfied, it's warm breath washing his face, and Tony? Tony was in awe. This thing that Bruce was – god. It was weird but it was also weirdly amazing. And it knew him. And it protected him. And his neck was killing him and his back was killing him and his ankle was killing him but he was also _alive_. This terrible, brutal monster that had killed Taylor Johnson? It _saved_ him.

It didn't speak but it did let him go, turning and stalking back to the broken body it had left behind, hefting it in its huge hands and lumbering off into the mountain with no further indication that it had thought of Tony at all. And he sat there for a long few minutes, just watching the spot where it had disappeared and breathing painful breaths that felt unbelievably good and unbelievably real.

He knew before long someone would come trying to figure out what all that screaming was. In fact, he was sure multiple campers were calling Bruce to investigate it right now – not that he was available to answer. But that assassin had been bold – it wasn't even quite dark yet – and he would be easy to find and question if he stayed there much longer.

Tony glanced back towards Bruce's trailer peeking through the trees and hated the thought of it. Being there, moving even that far. But what choice did he have? Maybe he would feel up for driving before Bruce got back and he could just leave this whole shitty experience behind him but until then, he had to find somewhere to hide.

So carefully and slowly he stood, forcibly dragging himself up with the aid of the tree he had been cowering against, and he limped his way to Bruce's trailer, wondering just what the fuck he was supposed to do now.


	19. Chapter 19

Bruce had no concept of the time when he made his way back to the trailer, as always, sick to his stomach and desperate for the safety of the little metal shell. This was so bad – so _so_ bad. Tony – _fuck_. He wanted to know that Tony was okay – he couldn't even conjure up the horrifying image of him strung up by his neck, clawing at the cable, unable to breath, being choked to death by that man – but he also didn't want to see Tony ever again, knowing that Tony had to see him become _that_.

He cast his eyes around as he left the relative safety of the forest, swallowing down a cry of relief as he finally reached his trailer. But immediately his nerves were set on edge when he saw that Tony's car was still there, parked right next to his, and Bruce hoped beyond hope that he wasn't there – or that if he was, he was asleep.

But when Bruce opened the door he was greeted to Tony holed up in one of the benches at the table with his shotgun aimed straight at him, eyes frantic, and panic hit Bruce hard in the gut as he froze, naked, in the doorway. This he wasn't expecting but then why _wouldn't_ Tony want to put him down? He was a fucking _monster_. And even though he knew Tony couldn't kill him – bullet or no it was a feat he'd never managed himself – that thing that he was, once attacked, wouldn't hesitate to return the favor.

He was just about to bolt back out the door – and go where? he had no idea – when Tony's eyes softened as he realized it was Bruce. His arms went limp, the gun falling into his lap. Bruce could see the bright red angry line around his neck where he had been choked nearly to death and the whole scene flooded back to him, that great beast wrapping it's hand around that man, listening to his bones crunch and grinning with satisfaction.

Bruce's stomach turned and he fled to the bathroom where he retched bile and curled up on himself and cried, hoping that Tony would be so turned off by this entire experience that he wouldn't see what a mess he was. Not that it mattered, Bruce supposed. Whatever they were to each other was over. No one had ever seen that part of him before. He couldn't imagine anyone hanging around after that.

After what felt like forever to Bruce – his panic attack finally abating a little and he contemplated moving into the shower – Tony knocked on the open door. Bruce didn't even bother to look up.

"You... you okay?" he asked, clearly afraid and Bruce visibly flinched, burying his head in his arm protectively, away from Tony. "I..."

There was nothing to say. Bruce didn't even know why he was still here.

"You should just go." The words came out muffled against his arm but they were apparently clear enough for Tony.

"We need to talk."

Bruce's mouth tightened as his stomach twisted in knots and he felt like throwing up again. That was absolutely the last thing he wanted. Leave it to a fucking paranormal investigator to want to _talk_ about the fact that he was monster. As if he had any answers.

"You can take a shower, or whatever," Tony said, his voice amazingly cold and that hurt almost more than anything else. "I'll wait."

For a minute neither of them moved. Bruce swallowed hard, doing everything in his power not to start crying again before he heard Tony's footsteps retreating. He managed to get the shower water started before he broke down again, hoping Tony couldn't hear him crying over the sound of the water running.

Despite the hot water Bruce's whole body ached as he made it to the bedroom, pulling on some clothes and glancing at the clock to see it was two in the morning. Really, all he wanted to was to go to bed, sleep off how shitty he felt and deal with Tony in the morning. But he guessed the last thing Tony felt like doing was cuddling up in bed with him and he figured he owed Tony answers he didn't have so he sighed and accepted his fate, walking into the kitchen like he was walking straight into a fitting squad.

Much to his surprise, Tony had made a pot of tea for him – chamomile, even – and for a brief moment he had the audacity to believe this talk wasn't going to be a totally disaster.

"The gun's not for you," Tony started, shifting it in his lap as Bruce opened the fridge to pile himself together a sandwich despite his total lack of desire to eat. "I don't know if Obie will send anyone else. I've already called Rhodey, not sure he believes me – except he will, I guess, when I show up with this," he gestured to his neck, "but he's going to set me up with a police detail or something. I don't know. Fuck."

Tony buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes as Bruce approached the table slowly to join him. He could only imagine how exhausted he was, how scared, what he was thinking – but he wasn't really sure he had the right to ask. He could only pour himself some tea, try to eat slowly, and wait for the inevitable questions.

"So you killed Taylor Johnson."

Bruce flinched, looking down at the plate and away from Tony's big eyes watching him, face hard and compassionless.

"As much as I am whatever that thing is – yes."

Tony didn't say anything for a painfully long minute and Bruce couldn't look up. He had never said those words out loud to anyone – not ever. He remembered sitting in therapy at six years old, wanting to scream _I did it! I did it!_ , just confess and get it over with. But he could never make the words come out. Now it seemed easy, now that Tony had seen it. Like finally it wasn't his burden alone to carry.

"This whole time I've been here – you've tried to distract me from the truth," Tony stated, his voice soft and strained and Bruce felt embarrassed, even though it had to be obvious why he didn't want Tony to find out.

"I'm sorry," he replied, hunching his shoulders. "But I couldn't risk having you find out. No one knows. I never – I never wanted _anyone_ to know."

"Well – I know," Tony stated matter-of-factly. "And I have video evidence."

Bruce choked, wide eyed and panicked as he looked up at Tony, trying to figure out if the cavalier way he said it was masking a bluff or not. But Tony looked supremely confident in that assertion and his heart started pounding in his chest. The implication of that... He was fucked. He was _totally_ fucked.

"When you took me up to the grave site I tracked our path with GPS just in case I needed to get back. Didn't realize you were intentionally trying to distract me," he spat, "but I figured we weren't going to learn too much going back up there together so I went back on my own and left motion sensitive cameras. Got you on tape, looking straight at the camera, from multiple angles."

Bruce couldn't breathe. He just sat there, staring, completely horrified. There was nothing he could do – nothing. People would come looking for him, wanting him to be that _thing_. His life would be over.

"I already wrote up my report on it. In fact – I have a meeting with the Johnson's Friday. I never really believed their witch hunt of you, but clearly I should've." Tony paused to curse under his breath and rub at his eyes again. "Goddamn I'm so fucking stupid."

"Don't," Bruce begged, not even caring how pathetic he sounded. "They deserve it, they deserve to know I killed their child, I'll confess, I'll do the time but please – please don't tell them about that monster. Please don't."

"And why shouldn't I?" Tony glared back, hurt shining clear in his eyes and Bruce didn't understand but he also didn't care. This was bigger than Tony – this was his very humanity at stake. "That thing killed Taylor – just like it killed your father. Just like it killed that man out there hours ago. And that thing is _you_. Sure you saved _my_ life, but who knows who you'll kill next."

Bruce had no idea how he knew about that – about his father – but it didn't matter. That was his to live with every day and he didn't regret it. He didn't. He wasn't a killer – or, he didn't want to be. That thing wasn't _him_ , but they were intertwined. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was –

"Because I can't _die_."

Bruce felt his lower lip tremble and his eyes go hot with tears that he tried to contain as Tony blinked, completely taken aback by that. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't the reality of Bruce's situation, the full lack of autonomy he had over his own life.

"I've tried," he confessed, the words spilling out faster than he could ever hope to stop them. "I've tried so many times. In high school I slit my own wrists and I came to naked with no scars and no idea where I'd been. After – after that boy I drove to the ocean and I walked in only to crawl out as that – that _thing_." Tears began to track down his face but he didn't stop even though his voice wavered. "If people find out about me, that I'm a real thing, it'll never end. I'll be – I'll be experimented on. Don't you think? I'll have to run or I'll have to comply and if I comply it won't matter what they do, it won't matter how painful it gets, I'll just become that monster again and again and again."

The silence between them was heavy as Bruce sniffed and wiped at his cheeks, hoping beyond hope that Tony would see the predicament he was in as Tony stared, processing what Bruce had said. And finally he sighed, setting the gun on the table.

"I'm not going to do it."

Relief washed through Bruce, immediately followed by a nagging feeling of fear when he realized that he just had to trust Tony here – and trust wasn't something that came easily to him.

"I don't know what you are – what this all is but. The thing is – I fucking _cared_ about you," Tony said, the words falling from his lips like poison, each one twisting his face as he said it. "You didn't have to fake all that shit just to throw me off the trail. That was cruel."

Bruce felt his heart break as he realized what Tony meant. All the time they spent together, the meals they'd shared, the way he felt, the way he touched and kissed and moaned, the way they made love... Tony thought it was all a hoax, all a lie. That Bruce faked it to save himself. Nothing could have been further from the truth. But what was he supposed to say?

"I didn't –" he started weakly but Tony interrupted.

"Save it," he growled as he stood. "It's over – I'm done. I should've never come here. This whole fucking thing was a mistake. Every fucking part of it."

Tears began to slip down Bruce's face again but there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. Was Tony wrong to believe that Bruce would lie to him? Bruce would've done anything to protect his cover – anything but let him die.

Tony grabbed his keys from the counter as he opened the door. But then he let it fall shut, turning back to Bruce and Bruce thought for a minute that he might start crying too.

"I've already deleted the evidence and formatted the cards," he said, only the slightest tremor in his voice betraying his steely facade. "Because _I_ still fucking care about _you_."

And with one last longing glance he was gone, the door slamming hard into the frame. Bruce sat at the table, feeling like Tony had carved his heart from his chest with a plastic spoon. He knew that happiness didn't last, not for him – that he wasn't meant to be happy and that even this little moment he had with Tony would end. He just didn't expect it to hurt _this_ goddamn much.


	20. Chapter 20

Tony stared dispassionately at all the people surrounding him, nursing his drink. It was like being at the biggest fucking family reunion ever except he didn't know a single person there. Thankfully Pepper stood at his side, dropping hints and helping him through, but he heard all the whispers – where has he been for the past five years?, only came home to inherit the company, looks just like his father there with his drink.

He had only been home thirty-six hours before his father died – Tony was there, but he was sure Howard hadn't even been lucid enough to recognize him. It didn't matter, not really – there was no love lost between them. But for some reason it hurt more than he had expected. And Obie was right there behind him with his hand on his shoulder, like he hadn't just tried to have him killed two days ago.

Now Tony watched him in that expensive black suit, exuding fake melancholy as he went from person to person, shaking hands, telling stories about Howard, and assuring them that nothing with Stark Industries would change but the name of the CEO – he had been running it for years anyway with Howard's compromised health.

Tony wanted to strangle him with his bare hands.

"Tony?"

He heard Pepper's voice and looked up at her, feeling like she had probably called his name a couple of times.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, swallowing the rest of his drink, letting the burn perk him up.

"I know you're tired, we only have to stay another half hour," she offered optimistically, far more sympathetic to him than she typically was. "Then we can go back to the hotel. You don't have any more events until the lawyer's meeting tomorrow."

"Thank god," he muttered, not really looking forward to that, especially since he hadn't had a moment alone with Obie yet.

"But I have to go to the restroom. Will you be okay here?"

"Yeah – yeah go," he encouraged, shaking his head, feeling stupid for not having thought about her at all. "I'll be fine. I need to talk to Obie anyway."

A guarded look came over Pepper's face but he shoved her off with the best smile he could manage – a half-hearted flop of a thing – and assured her he'd be okay. Even if he wasn't really positive he would be.

He hated the way his heart raced as he stood to approach Obie, the way every part of him longed to be back in bed with Bruce, the way he could feel the bruising on his neck with every swallow, the visceral fear coursing through his veins as Bruce turned into that monster. This was like a nightmare he couldn't seem to wake up from and he didn't feel prepared to deal with this – with any of this. But he also didn't have a choice.

Tony glanced around this pretentious roomful of people and realized for the first time – this was his life now. This. Once upon a time that realization would have thrilled him. Seventeen year old wannabe law major Tony who longed for the respect and power his father commanded. But now, when he knew how deeply his father's best friend had betrayed him? Used his company for a drug cartel, ran the whole thing behind his back, tried to kill his only son? All that respect, all that power was a lie. Where was the pleasure in that?

He forced himself to smile as he approached Obie, like nothing in the world was wrong as his whole reality was unraveling around him, and Obie smiled back as if he was the uncle and friend that he was supposed to be.

"Hey there Champ," he greeted with that big grin Tony used to love, managing to keep his disappointment to himself if he felt any at seeing him alive, resting a hand on his shoulder, thumb at his pulse point, and Tony managed not to flinch.

"Stane," Tony replied, not offering him any warmth or familiarity.

"Aw, is that how it's going to be?" he asked, mocking disappointment in that thick drawl of his.

"Yeah – sorry I'm not more excited," Tony growled under his breath, pulling at his tie and his shirt to expose the sharp line bruising across his neck.

"I must admit I am a little surprised to see you," Obie said as Tony rolled his eyes away from him, glancing across all the unsuspecting guests, guests who saw nothing but an amiable chat between family.

Tony snorted. "That's what happens when you're too big a pussy to do the dirty work yourself."

Obie's grip on his shoulder became uncomfortable as his hand clenched down.

"Son I have done more in my life than you _ever_ will," he replied, voice low. "I destroyed your relationship with Howard, I fed him lies about you every second you were gone until he didn't care if he ever saw you again and he died thinking you were a worthless piece of shit who didn't give a flying fuck about him. Don't fool yourself, _Champ_."

Tony bit down hard on the inside of his cheeks, tasting cooper as he tried to maintain his cool. Every fiber of his being begged him to haul back and punch Obie across the face, break his jaw, make him feel a even a sliver of his anger – but this wasn't the time or the place. The last thing he needed was to be taken to court by the COO of the business he was about to inherit. But God – how _could_ he? Tony knew Obie was a heartless bastard and it was true he had never had a great relationship with his father anyway but... fuck.

"You're fired," he spat out, immediately closing his eyes hard and restating, cursing his lack of tact in his anger. "Or you're going to resign, I mean. I'll give you a severance package and all that but you're going to sell your shares to me or let them be reabsorbed by the company or whatever but you're gone."

"You done?" Obie chuckled, removing his hand from Tony's shoulder and slipping it casually into his pocket, like this whole conversation didn't matter to him at all.

"I'm serious," Tony replied quickly, fingers so tightly balled into fists that they ached.

"Why would I leave?" Obie never rolled his eyes as a rule but he didn't have to – the derisive quality of his voice was more than enough to make Tony feel completely invalidated. "Because _you_ said? I have as much – hell, _more_ right to SI than you. I dealt with your deadweight father for years while you fucked around pretending see ghosts. I know more about SI than anyone – no one could replace me."

"I have someone in mind," Tony answered coolly as his eyes landed on Pepper shaking hands with a couple across the room, finally feeling a little of Obie's frustration in the length of his reply. "And it's simple – you resign or you get to go to jail forever for drug trafficking."

Obie huffed an incredulous laugh. "I'll just have you killed."

Tony shrugged. "Maybe I'll have you killed first," he suggested, totally nonchalant. "But either way, I have sealed proof resting with several different law firms across the country with explicit orders to be handed over to the DEA upon my death."

He could tell he struck a chord when Obie pat him a little too hard on the back with a laugh that was a little too strained.

"Proof? Sure, Champ. Whatever you say."

It wasn't exactly wrong of Obie to call his bluff – they didn't really have much to go on yet and there were only a few tangential links documented in paperwork and a personal statement from Tony himself collected and sent to a single lawyer. But now that Pepper had been given permission to look through anything she wanted – despite Tony having not officially been instated as CEO yet – she was working late to find missing data, connections, records where Obie fucked up. It was slow – painfully slow. It would probably take her months. But eventually they would have proof. Tony was sure.

"After I'm made CEO, I will expect your formal resignation," Tony muttered as Obie shook his head, walking away as if it was all a good joke – but Tony wasn't laughing.

His throat ached and he knew it was probably psychological but he didn't care, he wanted a drink. He cast his eyes towards the bar, thought of how his father would probably laugh, joke about a boy trying to be a man. Every memory of every hug his father had ever given him smelled like whiskey. The truth was alcohol never made his father a man – it was the only time it made that man his father.

Though he would never admit it, Tony was glad for Pepper's interruption and her hand on his shoulder forcing him to turn from the bar.

"You okay?" she asked quietly, a thread of concern worrying it's way across her pale brow.

"I will be," he grinned, a little too forced – sure it was obvious, "when you're COO in a couple weeks."

Pepper did this thing with her lips, pursing them in a way that Tony was starting to recognize as a sign that she wasn't planning to hold her breath and he supposed that was fair – though it did disappoint him.

"Let's go," Pepper said instead, moving her hand from his shoulder to his arm.

Tony was selfishly glad that she didn't let go. Part of him wanted to drink the bar dry, part of him wanted to run back to the Bruce's trailer – the last place he felt safe, part of him felt like saying fuck the East Coast enterly and booking the next flight to LA... but Pepper was there, grounding him, keeping him here. The only real option.

He didn't really know her, only communicated on the phone here and there through the years when it came to lawyers, but he had seen how she worked with him over the past two days and she deserved to be more than Obie's shadow. She was incredibly good, incredibly intelligent – he could see it, in the way her eyes narrowed at everything she looked at, taking it in, analyzing it – and she deserved to be COO. Hell, he was pretty damn sure Pepper knew more about SI than Obie did when it came right down to it, despite how long Obie had been involved by comparison.

Tony tried to ignore that Rhodey's little bodyguards followed them out, Pepper leading him effortlessly to the black town car that looked like every other damn town car there. Out of habit he stuffed his hand down the sides of the seats looking for a bottle but there was none – his father was dead, after all – and so he just slumped back in the seat, staring out the window like the dejected little kid he felt like at that moment.

"What did he say...?" Pepper asked carefully as the car rolled forward as per her instructions to return to the hotel. Tony couldn't fucking wait to be alone for one damn minute.

"Oh you know – the usual," he replied, deadpan, not bothering to tear his eyes away from the headstones as they passed by. "Vague threats, not so vague threats."

"Did he threaten your life?" Pepper needled, obviously concerned but Tony hated it. "You have a police detail. They should know. You should tell them. That alone –"

"No," Tony interrupted firmly. "This way is better. Better to beat him at his own game."

"I disagree. I –" There was a tremor in her voice and Tony didn't make her keep going.

"Hey."

He turned towards her, softening his voice, looking into her eyes and seeing how genuinely worried she was. She was in this now, too. She was gunning for his job – Obie had to know. She was going through his files, ratting him out. She was just as problematic as Tony was. Tony figured she had a right to be scared.

"He's been trying to get rid of me for years," he said, trying out a quick smile that was supposed to be reassuring but he was pretty sure by the strained one of her's it had mostly failed. "Pretty sure I'm going to survive this."

Thankfully Pepper got the message and glanced down at her phone after that poor attempt at a pep talk, allowing him to turn back to the window. Of course, he couldn't tell her the only reason he survived the paid assassin was because the guy he was fucking happened to be a goddamn monster but...

Tony found himself rubbing self-consciously at his neck. Regardless of what he might have said, what lies he might have told, Bruce _had_ saved his life. Bruce blew his cover to save his life. It hadn't really occurred to him before that moment in his anger at having been deceived into believing Bruce cared about him, but after being surrounded by so many people who didn't give a shit about him... at least Bruce had cared that much.

Fuck. He found his hands wandering to the seams in the seat again, knowing there was nothing there but still. This shit was too much. He needed a drink. Or maybe a frontal lobotomy so he could completely forget what it was like to feel anything at all.


	21. Chapter 21

Bruce's toes dug into the plush, airplane-shaped rug in the center of Jude's room as he spun him around in a circle to a loud squeal that descended into giggles when Bruce flopped him onto the bed. Everything about Jude's room was perfect to Bruce – from the rug that matched the meticulously hung wallpaper border of cartoon planes to the matching bed sheets and the helicopter carefully painted on the headboard. But after two months he had settled into it, his sadness over what was taken from him ebbing as he found pleasure in creating it for someone else.

He pulled _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ off the shelf beside his bed next to a lamp with a base in the shape of a plane and a shade painted blue with white clouds and sat down next to the toddler bed, helping Jude to pull the sheets over himself as he grabbed for his pacifier and lovie and settled in for a nap. Bruce loved reading to Jude. There was something meditative about reading the repetitive books that toddlers loved – on Monday he ate through one apple, on Tuesday it was two pears. It was easy and calm and everything Bruce needed as he tried to pull back together the unraveling tapestry that was his life.

Really – though it was fraught with the constant fear of transforming into that monster – staying with Betty and Leonard had been good. Distracting. The first month he spent there in Betty's guest bedroom – cooking, cleaning, taking care of Betty and Jude while Leonard was at work, having a beer out back on the porch with him after they went to bed. Despite his emotional turmoil, he managed to keep the monster at bay by sleeping very little at night, many naps on the couch with Betty during the day, and extremely unwise doses of Tylenol PM on the nights he simply had to sleep. Maybe he managed it, anyway. He doubted how much control he really had

Then, as pieces of her casts slowly came off, he returned to the trailer over the weekend, spending less and less time there. Now he would be staying with them only on Tuesdays and Thursdays while their mother and her mother-in-law checked up on her during the week. Though he would never admit it, the idea that Betty didn't need him anymore... It made him feel a little lost. In the fallout of his... well, it wasn't really a relationship, but his whatever it was with Tony – it was nice to feel needed.

When he finished the book he closed it and stared at Jude staring back up at him with those big baby eyes of his, perfectly calm and obviously sleepy, and no matter how much he tried he couldn't get the words he longed to say out. Instead, he just pushed back Jude's hair and kissed him on the forehead, whispering "sleep well" against his brow before leaving the room.

Like any good parent he stood in the hall outside the door, almost holding his breath as he listened for a few minutes to make sure Jude fell asleep. When he was reasonably sure Jude was down, he slipped quietly down the stairs to put up the dishes and join Betty for some trashy midday TV.

Betty was sitting there on the couch with a light exercise ball between her ankles struggling to lift it off the ground as her physical therapist suggested – though she was getting better.

"He go down okay?" she asked as he passed by into the kitchen and Bruce called back that he did, gathering lunch plates from the table and rinsing them in the sink.

When he had loaded the dishwasher he stepped into the other room and stared over the couch at the TV, subtitles on, Stark Industries' logo emblazoned behind the newscaster's head. And although he had suffered through two months of news reports on SI and Tony Stark, he still felt something in his throat catch at the logo. He wondered if he would ever get over this bullshit. Perfect example of why he didn't let people get too close. Betty there on the couch only heightened that suffocating sensation.

"Bruce?"

He snapped out of his focusless stare when he heard his name and looked towards Betty, her head turned as much as she could turn it in his direction.

"Need something?" he asked immediately. "Water? With ice?"

She smiled but there was a quality about it that he didn't like – like sadness.

"No," Betty replied, turning her head back towards the TV because he knew her neck was hurting her. "But could you come sit with me?"

Bruce approached cautiously, suddenly feeling nervous, like a bear sensing a trap. If the past two months proved anything, it was the Betty knew him far better than he had ever anticipated. And the last thing he wanted was to have to discuss anything related to himself or his emotions. Thus far she had let him off the hook, even though sometimes when she looked at him he knew she _knew_... but still, at this point, he thought he was pretty much in the clear.

Wrong.

The first words out of her mouth after he sat down next to her were "okay – what is it?"

Bruce blinked and swallowed and licked his lips. "What's what?"

Although she didn't hardly turn her head he could feel her eyes roll at the question.

"Something has been bothering you," she said, obviously annoyed that he was forcing her to say it instead of just spilling. "Maybe someone...?"

Bruce sighed, fingers picking at the pilled fabric on the edge of the couch, feeling a little like they were back in freshman year again and she was making him divulge his crushes. "Someone."

"You're in a relationship?" Betty visibly perked up, turning towards him as best as she could while his eyes turned back to the TV screen.

Tony was on it, front and center, at a podium, giving some kind of business talk with a polished young woman behind him, her red hair pulled back into a smart bun. The subtitles ran on about the new COO being a shift in Stark Industries' thinking, marking them as a young company with progressive ideas, no longer stagnating in an old man's dreams – or some other bullshit. But that was what Tony was good at, after all. Bullshit.

"No," Bruce answered, looking back down at his knees. "We had a fight. I mean – it wasn't a 'relationship' anyway, but..."

There was a moment of silence where Betty looked away too. "She's not upset about me, is she?"

Bruce's brows furrowed and he looked at her, trying to figure out what she could possibly mean – and then it hit him.

"Oh no, it wasn't about you," he assured quickly, reaching out and touching her arm. "It was before that. He came with me, actually, when I found out about the accident. But no. Our fight wasn't about you."

No, it was just about how Bruce was apparently a giant fucking monster – apparently both physically _and_ emotionally if Tony could believe that he would ever lead him on like that, Bruce thought coldly.

"He?" Betty asked then, distracted from her original concern and Bruce kinda laughed and looked away, shrinking back into himself. It was a subject they had never really broached and not one he was keen to go into now.

"Yeah..." he replied, unable to think of anything else to say.

Thankfully Betty recovered quickly and didn't delve. "You must've cared about him a lot."

His eyes landed on the TV again but it was back to the newscaster and he hated the disappointment that he felt at that. He hated that Betty was right.

"I did," he admitted, though admitting it out loud sucked. As much as he hated the cruel way Tony left him, it would've been much easier had it been the truth.

"So what happened then?"

Her question was soft, not prying, and he knew that people liked to believe that talking about it helped or whatever but it didn't. It just brought it all back up. It just made him feel like shit.

"It's just – it's hard to explain. It doesn't matter," Bruce managed, trying to keep his voice even. "He lives in New York anyway. It was never meant to mean anything – it just did."

Betty slid her hand towards him on the couch. She couldn't really lift it much, her shoulder still weak with the surgical pin in place, but he understood and though he didn't really want to, he reached back and squeezed it for her, the way she wanted to.

"Is it because he lives in New York?" she asked quietly. "Because you could move to New York."

Now Bruce really laughed, shaking his head at how astronomically impossible that was. What, and break Harlem? Even if he and Tony _were_ a thing, he could never, never _ever_ move to New York.

"That's impossible," he replied and she actually expended the effort to turn towards him, eyes hard.

"Why? Me?"

"No, it's not _you_ ," he replied emphatically.

"Is it money?"

Bruce snorted, eyes rolling back to the TV. He figured Tony had plenty of money.

"No, it's not money. Betty – we weren't even a thing."

"But you are totally hung up on this guy," she argued. "You've been staring off into space while you think I'm not looking doing misty eyes every day for the past two months."

"Even _if_ he wanted to see me again," Bruce said, unable to contain his frustration, "which he doesn't, by the way – he can't have me hanging around."

"And what's wrong with you?" Betty asked, _her_ eyes doing this thing where they were watering and Bruce groaned internally.

"It's not like that," he sighed. "I'm just – a man."

"And?"

"And I work at a park and live in a trailer."

"And?" she pushed.

"And the tabloids would go nuts!" Bruce finally snapped, watching as Betty went from surprised by his outburst to confused by what he said.

"Jeez Bruce – who'd you screw?"

Her bluntness surprised him just as much as him snapping surprised her and he rubbed at his eyes and lay his head in his hands.

"It's a long story but... Tony Stark. You know – the new CEO of Stark Industries."

Suddenly, Betty started to laugh. It was absolutely not what Bruce was expecting and he picked his head up to look at her. He couldn't help but crack a smile because when he said it like that, it did seem pretty preposterous.

"Come on!" she said as she tried to regain control of herself. "That's a _damn_ long story – like a tall tale."

"It's not!" Bruce insisted, leaning over to lightly elbow her. "But now you understand how ridiculous it is to think we could ever... whatever."

"He's cute," Betty teased. "Those tight fitted suits, that slicked back hair that never really seems to stay put..."

Bruce felt his face go hot, involuntary memories of every bare inch of Tony's skin surfacing in his mind. It was awful. He couldn't wait to be over this.

"Oh my god!" she seethed, giggling. "You really _did_ screw him!"

"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled, folding his arm on the armrest, pillowing his head on it dejectedly. "It was a mistake."

"Why?" Betty asked, quieting down and becoming serious again.

"Because what am I supposed to do now?" he whispered, staring at the TV, watching the scrolling text on the bottom of the screen going on about the drop in Stark Industry's stock after the COO replacement. "I still have all these... _feelings_."

"Hey."

Bruce turned his head up to look at her. Betty patted her lap.

"Come here."

Bruce re-positioned himself so that he was laying sideways on the couch with his legs tucked up, his head on her thigh while she lifted her hand to rest it on his head, moving her fingers through his hair. It was so comforting, just to be touched like that, innocently, the way his mother did when he was sad. He couldn't believe he had kept her from his life for so long. If there was one thing he didn't regret about his time with Tony, it was that – intentionally or not – Tony brought him back to Betty.

"It'll be okay," she murmured. "It always is."

And just like that, Bruce believed her. Even though, as three dead bodies to his name proved, not everything turned out okay. It was just... he wanted it to be true.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Man y'all I have never had the kind of drama I have had in my life while posting a fic before I gotta tell ya. It's ridiculous. But I'm home from my 2000 mile road trip so hopefully the next four updates will go as scheduled. SORRY.

* * *

Finally, it was seven o'clock. The autumn sun was at that annoying point in the sky that forced Tony to pull the blinds just to sit comfortably in his own office. But whatever – he had whiskey – and he pulled it effortlessly from his desk along with a glass as Pepper walked in unannounced.

She made a cursory grimace at the glass as he poured, unloading a pile of papers and her tablet on the desk and making herself at home in the seat opposite. He never offered her a drink, but then he knew she didn't want one. Instead, he settled into his own chair to listen to her daily report.

"I ordered Chinese –"

"And I suppose you'll expense that?" he interrupted, not the first unappreciated joke he'd made that day.

"– because I'm guessing you've not eaten a real meal yet this week," she concluded with an impatient stare.

Tony just nodded as he took a sip of his drink and shrugged his shoulders a little. God, sometimes Pepper made him feel so damn tired.

"Well you're not wrong."

"Also, knowing your fondness for the NASDAQ," she continued once she had that confirmation without missing a beat, "I'm guessing you've not seen how stock climbed a whole thirteen points since we announced moving our support centers back to the US this morning."

That, at least, was good news. He swore at Pepper last month that if she ever brought the goddamn stock market up with him again he'd throw her from the roof. It wasn't his best moment. But fuck if he gave a shit about it. The board and investors and stakeholders and every damn person on the planet was breathing down his neck about the drop but what was he supposed to do? Of course stock was going to drop they just got a new CEO no one knew anything about and one of the first things he did was replace the very well liked COO. But he sure as shit wasn't going to keep Obie around so if the stock was going to tank, it was going to tank. And everyone just needed to shut the hell up about it.

"Thank fuck," he muttered into his glass as he took another sip.

"It was a good move, even though it'll be expensive," she said as she leaned back into her seat a little more. "I think it'll appease the board for a little while."

"Project X –"

"Stupidest name ever," Pepper interrupted with a smirk, much to Tony's aggravation.

"– will hopefully shut them up for good." He finished, motioning with two fingers for her to hand over the papers she brought in for him to sign.

"Boards are never quiet, Tony," she warned as she handed him the stack complete with little sticky note flags already in place.

"Fucking paper," he muttered as he picked up a pen to start signing, resentful of the antiquated system.

Together they went through each one, pausing to answer the door when security came up with the Chinese. Although sometimes he hated these daily meetings with Pepper, they were also one of the only times he could let his guard down with another human being. Already his weekends were full of potential tabloid regret – unless he locked himself in his apartment and refused to leave. If he thought hopping from town to town hunting up ghosts was lonely, he had no idea what lonely really was.

Tony's phone rang. Not his office phone, not his business phone, not the new one he got after moving back to New York – but the one he never gave up because he couldn't willingly destroy the little glimmer of hope looking at gave him. He glanced at it, but it wasn't what he had hoped – just Mark Johnson trying to get ahold of him. Again.

"That Johnson guy?" Pepper asked, chopsticks piled full of noodles paused on the way to her mouth.

"Yeah," Tony sighed, throwing the phone in a drawer and slamming it before picking back up his pen.

"We sent him a cease and desist months ago," she pointed out.

"I know," Tony growled, rolling his eyes at the paper as he scratched his name into it a little too rough before slamming down the pen and turning to the food instead.

"I don't understand why you keep that phone around anyway. He's the only one that calls."

"But someone else might," he mumbled, burying his face in Mongolian beef.

Pepper gave this cute little snort of disbelief that rankled. It wasn't like Tony _really_ believed Bruce would ever call – Bruce saved his life and Tony repaid him by being pretty much the biggest asshole ever. Still... The lonelier he became the more desperate he was to hear from Bruce again. He missed him in ways that were embarrassing, in ways that he felt in his gut. Fuck – he imagined him while masturbating, as pathetic as _that_ was to admit. What they had experienced was raw and natural in a way he had never experienced with anyone else. Even if Bruce had just been leading him on, he still _felt_ something. How was he supposed to let that go?

"Okay," Pepper said, setting her box of noodles down on the table to get his attention. "Who are you so hung up on?"

Tony looked up at her over his own box with a mouthful of beef and blinked. "Huh?"

"This mystery person who might call an old number you should've disconnected," she replied, taking a sip of water but keeping her eyes pinned to him to he couldn't try to wave it off and escape the conversation.

Frankly, Tony was a little surprised that she even knew there was a 'mystery person' but then she was smart and he hadn't been particularly guarded around her.

"He's just a guy – a friend," Tony tried to explain away, picking at the meat with his chopsticks, suddenly not hungry as he thought about how Bruce had cooked for him during their time together – infinitely better than take out Chinese.

"A friend who never calls," Pepper pointed out with an air of disbelief and Tony sighed.

"Okay, we had a 'thing' or whatever," he divulged, pushing the box away in favor of his drink for this conversation.

"You're gay?" she asked, her disbelief only growing. "No offense, it's just the way you've looked at me – and the tabloids –"

"Bi, technically," he corrected, drowning the glass and pouring more. This was ridiculous. And unnecessary. And – "How exactly have I looked at you?"

Pepper gave him a look that was supposed to mean something like 'you know how' but he responded with his own look of clear confusion and she just lifted her eyes to the ceiling and took a moment to gather herself.

"It doesn't matter," she said and Tony nodded.

"On that we agree." He took a sip of whiskey.

"No – not." Pepper rubbed at her eyes, clearly frustrated..

Tony knew she was tired and that he should tell her to just go home but he also knew as soon as she walked out he'd be alone again, alone with his thoughts of all the huge fucking mistakes he made over the past ten years, and even this annoying conversation was better than that.

"Why are you still holding on to this guy who hasn't called you?"

Tony licked at his bottom lip and drew it into his mouth, biting it and looking away. _Why_? Because he was the last time Tony felt good, felt safe? Because he saved his life? Because he held him close and kissed him on the lips as he fucked him? Because he related to him in a way that no one else ever had? Because he had no one else?

Fuck. That last one hurt but that was it, wasn't it? There was no one else that would call – no one that wasn't business, anyway. Well, maybe Rhodey, but he was busy, too, working overtime to get a promotion, and Tony understood that. And Pepper, well – she was his COO, his right hand woman. They were friends, as much as they could be, but... He just wanted a friendly voice.

"I don't know," he lied, turning his glass in his hand so it caught a little bit of the fading light that managed to get through the edges of the blinds. "I just want to."

Pepper sighed and pulled the ponytail from her hair, running her fingers through it and twisting it around and over her shoulder. "Well – have you ever considered that maybe he's as dumb as you are and waiting for _you_ to call _him_?"

Tony barked out a rough laugh. Poor Pepper had no idea how preposterous _that_ was.

"He's definitely not waiting for me to call."

"Then you need to let it go," she said, so matter-of-factly his chest actually tightened with fear because it was so obvious that she was right. "You can't hold on to someone who isn't holding on to you. That's not healthy."

"Neither is drinking yourself to sleep and I do that every night," Tony pointed out.

"Oh, good argument," Pepper replied sarcastically, picking back up the chopsticks to pick through the noodles and Tony chuckled indulgently.

For a moment there was silence between them but Tony couldn't help himself, he just had to say it out loud, to say it to someone.

"We had an – an argument," he started, running his finger along the edge of his jaw, embarrassed. "And I'm pretty sure I was wrong."

Pepper sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "And you don't want to apologize."

"It's not that I don't _want_ to..."

"You can't."

But there was obvious disbelief in the way she said it and he looked away, knowing she was right again. It wasn't that he couldn't, it was that he was too big a coward to go through with it.

"You hired me to help you run this business," she said, closing up the box of noodles and throwing it in the trash. "Your personal life isn't my business. But you know my opinion on this. You're making this much more difficult than it has to be."

"Kind of my thing," he muttered, burying his face in his glass.

"And speaking of things you make more difficult than they have to be," she continued as she stood, gathering up her tablet and the papers she had him sign. "I sent the final package out to the lawyer you requested. You're welcome."

Tony merely responded with an affirmative hum, knowing her opinion on that too. They had found such damning evidence it did seem ridiculous not to just turn him in to the DEA but Tony knew it was the only leverage he had – weak as it was. Once Obie was in prison, nothing would stop him from calling up some buddy of his and having him assassinated. And this time he wouldn't have Bruce.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

He wasn't looking at her but her voice had softened and he knew the way she was looking at him. They had grown close over the past few months and despite how they snapped at each other he knew Pepper cared for him – the way he cared for her.

"Try to make it home before you fall asleep – and to come in sober, huh?"

Tony's eyes rolled up to look at her and her tight smile and he nodded. It didn't mean anything, of course, but he wasn't fooling anyone.

As Pepper shut the door behind her he felt the heaviness of his solitude like a weight on his chest, suffocating him. And no amount of alcohol was going to change that.

For a minute he pulled his old phone out of the drawer he'd ditched it in, ran his thumb over the screen, unlocked it a few times even but he didn't call. What was he going to say? After all this time? Sorry for being such an unsympathetic dick, I was just pretty stressed out?

He sighed, trying to let all the emotions he was holding on to go with it as he threw the phone in the trashcan after Pepper's noodles. It was over. Tony missed him, sure, but... it was over.

When he stood he stretched, hearing his back pop and knowing Pepper was right – he needed to make it to bed, sleep a couple hours somewhere comfortable, take a shower. But still, he didn't make it past the threshold of the door before he turned back around, dug the phone out of the trash, and slamming it back in the drawer to deal with tomorrow.


	23. Chapter 23

The trailer was quiet. Bruce was curled up in the plastic bench seat, tea going cold on the table, a battered copy of _The Hobbit_ in his hands. It was the weekend and although he used to enjoy the quiet of his little trailer now it seemed too quiet. None of Jude's little squeals and cries, none of Betty's lilting chatter, none of Leonard's dry commentary... and if he was honest with himself, the worst was the lack of Tony's pervasive intrusion. He had been there, in his trailer, permeating everything with his memory. And it sucked to come back after being away, being with people he loved, and remember how he had lived with no one for so long.

Of course he had done that to himself, and he knew it. He had a good reason, or so he thought. But that didn't mean he didn't have regrets.

Bruce sighed and shifted in the seat, considering just getting up and going out, walking through the park, seeing if Clint or Bucky or someone needed some help. He owed pretty much everyone a favor or twenty after how much they helped him out with Betty, taking his calls and covering his shifts. It was strange to think that for so much of his life he felt totally alone but here he was – with family and friends that he actually missed. What had he believed was so bad about him that no one liked him?

Well. Besides a ten foot monster lurking beneath his skin.

And it was easier, certainly, than feeling this way. Lonely. He'd gotten used to it and now...

He shut the book on his finger and leaned back against the wall. Yeah. This sucked. But thinking the same cyclical thoughts wasn't helping.

So he stood, tidying up a bit to get ready to go when a knock fell on the door. For a moment he was relieved – even excited. It was nice to feel wanted. The only person who ever really came to his trailer was Tony. Well, Clint, sometimes. Occasionally Bucky. But mostly Tony. And obviously what he wanted, well... He was the only person to want that in a long time.

There was that brief little spark of hope when he opened that door that there would be familiar big brown eyes staring back at him, that cocky smile – a face he simultaneously wanted to kiss and smack. Of course he knew better than to really expect that – though he did expect it to be someone he at least recognized. But the clearly agitated blond man on his doorstep was a total stranger to him.

"Bruce Banner?" he asked, voice strained, hands in his pockets, clearly balled into fists and Bruce suddenly felt incredibly uneasy.

"Can I help you?" Bruce replied carefully, uncertain and wanting to slam the door in his face – but falling back on years of experience acting as unsuspiciously as possible.

"My name is Mark Johnson."

Bruce literally felt his heart drop into his stomach and it took every ounce of his willpower to keep his hand from shaking on the door. What the fuck was he doing _here_? What the _fuck_ did Tony tell him?

"I just – can I come in?"

On autopilot, Bruce nodded, opening the door wide to let him in and offering him a seat at the table with his open hand. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, breathing hard through his nose to maintain control as he took a second to compose himself before joining Mark at the table. It felt entirely too much like a walk to the gallows. The problem was he could never be sure if it was him who was to be hanged – or if it were Mark. His monster's sense of self-preservation was strong.

"You – you know who I am, right?" Mark asked after a deep, reluctant breath when it became clear that Bruce wasn't going to start any particular line of questioning.

"Yeah – Taylor's brother, right?" Bruce answered, trying not to wince over the name of the boy he had killed.

It was awful – staring at his brother's face this close for the first time. He had seen the corpse – of course. He'd seen the artist rendering and photographs in the paper and Mark looked so much like him. Although he rarely experienced panic attacks outside of incidents with that thing that he was, he could feel himself shutting down, his breathing becoming less even, and he just really, really needed to keep his shit together through whatever the hell this was.

"Yeah, I..." Mark swallowed and looked down at the laminate table, shifting uncomfortably in the seat as he tried to gather his thoughts. Bruce wished he'd just spit it the fuck out. "I was in contact with Tony Stark for a while. He said he spoke with you?"

Bruce's whole chest tightened and he nodded dumbly as his brain whiplashed him through possibilities – trying to figure out what he should say, what question was coming next, what Tony could've possibly told him.

"He just –" Mark rubbed at his eyes, clearly frustrated "– have you heard from him?"

Of everything Bruce expected him to ask – that was not on the list. He was so surprised that the question didn't even register and he didn't say anything until Mark looked at him, clearly waiting for a response.

"Excuse me?" was all Bruce could manage and Mark was forced to repeat himself.

"Tony Stark, Paranormal Investigator." Mark kinda laughed, but it wasn't real funny. "It sounds stupid but I was working with him regarding my brother and he said he talked to you once. And I just – a couple of months ago he messaged me saying he had some exciting news regarding his research but then he disappeared? And I could never get in touch with him and suddenly he's all over the news and he's the CEO of Stark Industries? And I got this really ridiculous cease and desist letter from them but I think I deserve to know what he had to say."

Bruce couldn't believe it. Tony _hadn't_ told him. He wanted to believe that, he had lived the past few months in that belief, but then Mark showed up here and – and it was just to see if he knew anything? He was completely ignorant of the truth?

Immediately Bruce deflated, all the tension rushing out of him as he tried not to laugh, giddy with relief. This still sucked – and he sure as hell had to maintain composure so he could figure out a way to throw Mark off but – Tony was true to his word. He hadn't told.

"The nature of my relationship with Tony was... personal," Bruce confessed, suitably embarrassed – as he figured he should be. Or rather, Tony, at least, should have been embarrassed by the complete lack of professional decorum he had shown.

"Personal?" Mark asked, clearly surprised by that response. "So you have a way to contact him?"

Bruce shook his head, allowing himself to blush a little and turn his eyes to the side, playing up his chagrin. "We had a falling out. We don't talk anymore."

Mark still seemed confused, unsure what to say and Bruce thought he'd throw him a bone. As terrible as it was to actually say to a man he hardly knew, keeping Mark off balance was his best bet for self-preservation.

"We slept together," Bruce offered meekly, keeping his eyes down though he could practically feel Mark's homophobic horror at that confession. "He walked out when he inherited Stark Industries. I don't really have anything to say to him now."

"I..." Mark started, coughing to cover his obvious discomfort though he couldn't meet Bruce's eyes. "You – or rather – he didn't talk to you about his work?"

Bruce managed a paltry little laugh. "At first – yeah, he picked my brain over the incident. But eventually, no. He had nothing to say about it. If he did, he never shared it with me. Tony was a paranormal investigator – he was a scam artist. Are you really surprised?"

Although that had been Bruce's original position from the start, he was struck by how difficult that was to say now. What Tony did... There was some truth to it. Fuck – Bruce was living proof. And whatever Tony's intentions were, pure or not, hack or not, in this case, anyway, the paranormal was the truth.

For a long minute Mark didn't say anything at all, clearly wrestling with his inner turmoil about this. He had believed in Tony, held out hope, thought there was something there. And there was – god but it sucked to know, to _know_ he killed this man's brother and had to tell him otherwise, had to make him think he was crazy.

But he could try to get around it without outright lies.

Bruce looked at Mark, the wounded look on his face, and softened his voice a little.

"Once he told me that he didn't even believe in what he did," Bruce offered, trying for sympathy now that he had the upper hand. "He just tried to help people come to terms with the horrible things that had happened to him."

Then, the other man totally crumpled. It was like something inside of him snapped, something that had been holding him together, and he lay his head in his hands and cried.

Bruce hated it. Every second he had to sit there and watch this man fall apart was like another knife in his heart. He had done this. This was all because of him. He deserved it, to see this – hell, he deserved much _much_ more – but it hurt like a bitch.

"I'm sorry," he managed out as he wiped at his eyes, trying to pull himself together, surely embarrassed and Bruce didn't know what to say. "I was stupid, so stupid..."

And Bruce had no idea what to say. It's okay? It was his _fault_. You were dumb to think there was something more? No – there clearly _was_ something more and he was it. He hated the idea of lying any more to this man whose life he had forever destroyed but what was he supposed to do? Bruce was already in a cage, trying to protect everyone from him – he couldn't voluntarily allow himself to become a painful lab experiment.

"I just thought – it was so weird, you know?" Mark said after another moment, swallowing around the hitch in his throat and sniffling a little.

"I know," Bruce replied quietly, thinking of coming upon that scene, that enclosure of rocks, the corpse laid inside. "I know."

"And I just –" Here Mark paused again, looking at the ceiling and trying to maintain his composure. "I guess I'm just not ready to let Tay go."

Bruce didn't know what to say. There were plenty of times in his life where he felt low – hell, he tried to kill himself more than once and the only thing worse than trying to kill yourself was waking up to realize you weren't dead. But this? This might be worse. He wanted to tell him; the words were there, stuck in his throat, trying to come out.

"I'm sorry – I shouldn't. I shouldn't have come here," Mark apologized, standing suddenly, awkwardly, hitting the table with his knees, clearly mortified by his own behavior as he tried to back out of the trailer as quickly as possible.

"It's okay," Bruce tried to calm him down, let him know it was okay, feeling confused about what he was supposed to be feeling at all but Mark wasn't listening, just thanking him, desperate to get out.

And Bruce could only stand there, watching him pull away through the window. For a long time he remained unmoving, just processing, trying to get his brain to catch up with what just happened. And then, when it did, he was furious.

What Tony did – it was unforgivable. He was right – fuck. He was right but it wasn't fair – not to Mark, not to those people. To give them hope like that and to drag it away behind a cease and desist. What the fuck was he thinking? What the _fuck_.

Without thinking Bruce grabbed his phone off the table and dialed Tony's number, ready to rip into him. And when it went to voicemail, he flung it hard against the wall, shattering as it fell to the floor.

He felt stupid and powerless. It was ridiculous to think Tony was going to pick up – they hadn't spoken in months and he was a CEO now. But _god_ – what was he going to do? He had to lie to that guy, had to watch him cry for his dead brother in the trailer Bruce hid in specifically to avoid people like him, and now he had to live with that for the rest of his life. Tony deserved to feel half as shitty as he felt right then. He _deserved_ it. Didn't he?

... didn't he?

Suddenly Bruce felt like he couldn't stand as all the anger drained out of him and he hit the floor and buried his head in his hands, pressing his palms to his eyes. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream – but nothing came out. Nothing.

This wasn't Tony's fault – not really. He wanted it to be – it was easier to be angry with him than to swallow the truth. But the truth was that he did this, it was all his fault, and it always would be.


	24. Chapter 24

The mountains were barren this time of year. Tony knew he had just missed the best of it, the leaves turning brown now and littering the ground. The nostalgia he felt as he pulled into the reserve was disconcerting. He'd felt less when he went to assess his father's estate and he grew up there. But here? Here is where he fell in – well. Here is where he met Bruce. It was... special.

It wasn't difficult to convince him to come up here. A missed call from Bruce, attempts to call back that finally terminated in an old woman picking up and telling him that she had just moved and that he had the wrong number. That was all it took. Tony didn't know why Bruce had called and then changed his number but frankly he didn't care. He just needed to see Bruce, apologize, achieve some sense of closure after what they'd had so he could move on with his life.

And for the most part he had been able to move on. He shut down his website – not just because he was now the CEO of Stark industries but also because, although he always knew he was, now he really felt like a fraud. All of those cases he researched, all of those articles he wrote. How many of them had truth behind them that he had been blind to? How many people had a genuine experience that he had missed? It freaked him out. Bruce freaked him out to be completely honest but... it was Bruce. And he saved his life. And if he needed anything from him, Tony wanted to be there.

It had occurred to him that Bruce might not be receptive to this visit. He had changed his number after all but then he had still called. How mad could he really be?

He pulled in next to Bruce's familiar green Jeep and stared at the trailer, stretching a little after the five hour drive as butterflies went crazy in his stomach. Butterflies? Really, it felt more like an aggravated hornet's nest, the rush of anxiety and desire at the thought of being so close to Bruce again.

When Tony stepped out of his car the cold mountain air stung and he took a deep breath, trying to acclimate but his fleece lined jacket just wasn't cutting it. Instead he turned his eyes to the windows, easily forgetting about the temperature as he watched the curtains, trying to see if Bruce had seen him drive up. But there was no indication anyone was in the trailer at all.

For a moment Tony was discouraged as he stepped up to the door. It was very possible Bruce wasn't here despite the presence of his Jeep. But then – he would wait. That might have seemed kind of stalker-ish but he didn't drive five hours to give up that easily.

Tony knocked. There was no response and he knocked again. He grit his teeth together, trying not to let his disappointment get the better of him as he lifted his fist for the last time before he went to his car to wait.

"Go away!"

He blinked, pausing his hand halfway to the door and glancing at the window to the side. Bruce clearly knew he was there and was watching him but Tony couldn't see him through the curtains.

"You called _me_!" Tony called back through the door, feeling a little ridiculous arguing this way and more than a little pissed Bruce didn't just open the door.

But then he got his wish and the door flung open, Bruce's anger written all of over his face but it didn't matter – Tony was filled with a strange mixture of joy and relief and longing and he was just so happy to see him again. They could work this out.

"If you had answered," Bruce started and Tony tried to interrupt with a "well I've been busy" but Bruce didn't let him interject, "you'd know it was because fucking Mark Johnson showed up here crying and looking for you!"

"What?" Tony was genuinely perplexed, trying to figure out what he was talking about when it hit him as Bruce continued.

"You know? The client you came up here for? The guy you lead to believe you had an answer for – and you did? That answer being me? That guy you shoved away behind a cease and desist like _he_ was a criminal?"

Bruce's venom stung but he deserved it. It wasn't like he wasn't aware of that – but still. He deserved that.

"I had no idea he was going to do that," Tony countered and that seemed to only prick at Bruce more as his fists clenched in frustration.

"That's it? That's what you have to say? Do you have any idea what that was like for me?" he shot back, turning his face to the side like he couldn't even look at him. "I – I get that you felt deceived by me but seriously, that was just a job for you – this is my _life_."

Bruce looked back, anger seeming to fade but his eyes were clearly pained and Tony felt it in his chest, the acuteness of the park. He'd had nothing but time to think about what life must be like for Bruce and the wash of his nightmares he'd had since that night came flooding back over him. Of course Bruce wouldn't know it, wouldn't understand his life any more than he did Bruce's, but he wasn't so far from inexperienced as Bruce might think. He was trapped in his own way.

"I can't leave, I can't shut it off," Bruce continued, voice wavering just slightly as he fought to tamp down his rage. "I am this thing and all of my life I've been terrified of myself, what I could do, what would happen if someone found out, and you – you came here and what was I supposed to do? It didn't matter to you the way it mattered to me."

Bruce's anger flagged as Tony's burned hot in his gut at that confession. Over time he had come to believe he had been wrong, that Bruce had cared, that he would've just let him die if what they'd had between them was just a ruse. But to hear it like that – _what was I supposed to do?_

"So you really never gave a shit," Tony spat, pulling his jacket tighter around himself in a protective gesture that he hated but he didn't have the energy to be really angry. It just hurt.

"Fuck you," Bruce growled, clenching his fists again, turning back into the trailer and then stalking back in a way that made Tony flinch, scared he was going to deck him. "Fuck you for coming here and accusing me like that _again_. Fuck you. _Fuck you_."

The door slammed hard in his face and Tony stared, shell shocked, watching the puff of his breath materialize in the air as he breathed hard, heart racing from the confrontation, realizing now what Bruce had meant, too stupid and heartbroken to see it before. Just because he had initially tried to distract him didn't mean he hadn't truly fallen for him. And then it was like something inside Tony snapped and he came back to himself, remembering everything he meant to say that got lost when standing face to face with the man who'd haunted his dreams and nightmares for months.

"I'm sorry!" he shouted, pressing himself up against the door and repeating it, hoping Bruce could hear. "I'm sorry! You're right! I'm a dick!"

There was no response, but it didn't matter to Tony. If this was the last time he was going to have a chance to talk to Bruce, he needed to say what he had to say or it would haunt him forever.

"And guess what? You're right again – it _doesn't_ matter to me," he continued, louder now, face stinging in the cold, fingers burning as he pressed them against the door. " _You saved my life_. I can – I can never repay you for that. But it doesn't matter – I trashed the files. I don't care about any of that. I want you to be safe. I want... I just. I..."

He curled his hand into a fist and pounded it against the door, groaning that he had to admit this through a door but fuck – what was he going to do? Bruce wasn't going to be able to hear a damn thing anyway but Tony was a selfish son of a bitch and he needed it to say it.

"I fucking _care_ about you. You hear that, Bruce?" he demanded, shouting at him. "I can't fucking help it. I – I think I love you."

The last three words were soft and while there was something ridiculously romantic about the image of Bruce pressed to the other side of the door, Tony knew he couldn't possibly have heard them. But as he backed away from the door, watching, hoping for the handle to turn – those ones he knew he said more for himself anyway. He would never get another chance to say them and if he didn't say them now, he would never be able to move on.

Tony sighed bodily, shoulders dropping as he rubbed his hands together, shoving them in his pockets and turning away from the trailer. It was a slow walk back to his car because he desperately turned around over and over, hoping he would see the door open, see Bruce's face one more time... but it was for naught.

Despite the cold he waited outside the car for a minute, watching the trailer, knowing it was futile but unable to stop. Since the beginning Bruce had been like a magnet to him, drawing him in. This was no different. Attempting to leave was fighting his very nature but eventually his face was going numb and what was he going to do? Camp out in his car, harassing someone who clearly wanted nothing to do with him?

When Tony finally turned and opened the door to his car, he fantasized he heard the door to the trailer opening too and mentally chastised himself for such a ridiculous indulgence. But then he heard the unmistakable crunch of footfalls on gravel and he turned, just having a moment to glimpse Bruce's face before he was slammed back against the car and Bruce's lips were pushed hard against his.

Bruce was a torrent of heat against him, his mouth hot, his body hot, and Tony was instantly hard, instantly wanting. He reached out for him, hardly able to breath, trying to grasp at his shirt, his numb fingers working hard to cooperate and failing.

"Bruce, I – I'm..." he mumbled against Bruce's mouth, trying to catch his breath but unwilling to disconnect himself from Bruce's lips to do so.

"Shut up," Bruce mumbled back, pulling him away from the car and stepping backwards towards the trailer.

Tony followed willingly, allowing himself back into the familiar space, so distinctly Bruce – and it felt so natural, so right. His jacket fell from his shoulders as Bruce worked at his belt and with each piece of clothing that hit the floor they moved closer to the bedroom.

Bruce's body felt so warm, so comforting against his own. The smell of Bruce's skin, the taste of his mouth, the press of his hands against his back as they tumbled into bed together – Tony had missed it so bad he physically ached. He wanted him, wanted to feel Bruce inside of him, as close as physically possible, but he also didn't want him to move, his hands tangled in Bruce's hair, on his neck, holding him against his mouth, legs entwined, so tight they could hardly move and he just... he just didn't want to lose this moment he had barely managed to regain.

And then Tony realized Bruce was struggling to breath, chest heaving, and he drew his face away to look at him and give him some space. For a moment, Bruce's eyes studied his own and Tony wasn't sure he'd ever looked so openly at anyone. It was a little bit scary but then – he had seen all of Bruce. Bruce deserved to see all of him.

"I never asked for this – I never wanted it," Bruce whispered and Tony pressed his palm against his cheek.

"I never asked for it either," Tony replied quietly, stroking his hand back through Bruce's hair.

Bruce blinked, confused – then actually laughed out loud. It was derisive and Tony was embarrassed but still – it was a laugh.

"Do you mean being the CEO of Stark Industries?" he asked, incredulous, and Tony nodded.

"It's hell," he answered sincerely and Bruce was laughing again, but it was more honest, and Tony started to laugh too because, yeah, okay, maybe being a CEO wasn't as bad as being a monster but...

"Shut up," Bruce said again, kissing him again, lips curled in a grin.

Their laughter was like some kind of strange catharsis and suddenly they couldn't stop. Each awkward shift, each clumsy bump of their noses, the sudden silliness of their desperation to be close made them laugh. Tony whined this needy, pathetic whine when Bruce fingered him, wanting that touch so damn bad for so damn long, and they laughed between kisses. Bruce became overwhelmed, stopping, whole body trembling as he leaned over Tony halfway in, and they laughed as he regained his composure.

It just felt so easy, so right, so wonderful to be back in his bed, back in his arms. And laughing was easier, easier for Tony who had to fight to maintain control of his emotions as Bruce pushed him closer to the edge with each thrust because this? It was perfect. He had – he had just missed Bruce so fucking much. Bruce, who made him feel safe, made him feel home, who wanted nothing from him, ever. Bruce, who he could never really be with, not now or likely ever.

He moaned a warning, flighty and full of need, wrapping his arms around Bruce's neck, clinging to his shoulders and burying his face in his chest as he came. And Bruce balled a fist in the comforter, falling to his elbow, his other hand attempting to steady himself where it was pressed against the sweaty small of Tony's back, all rhythm falling apart as he fell into Tony, and a different kind of pleasure unfurled in Tony's gut at hearing the way Bruce cried his name as he came, too.

For a minute they lay there, exhausted but smiling into each other's skin, Bruce on top of him, heavy but the tingly feeling in Tony's toes didn't want him to move and he just stroked at Bruce's damp hair, feeling his chest move. There was something especially satisfying about knowing Bruce had wanted him too, that these past few months of longing were reciprocated, that he _had_ meant something to him. His father's death, Obie's hatred, Pepper's indifference to his personal life, Rhodey's busy workload – he knew he was selfish for feeling alone but he couldn't help that he did. It was nice to know someone had been thinking about him. Someone he had wanted to be thinking about him.

But eventually Bruce rolled off of him and the wall between them began to build as their bodies cooled. His mind raced trying to think of something to say to Bruce, something that would bring them back together, but it was hard because what was there to say? Tony wanted him but...

"I really – I'm sorry he came here," he settled on at last. If this was going to be it, at least he could apologize to his face, even if he was staring at his ceiling. "I was a coward. I didn't know what to say to him. The cease and desist was easier. But if I had thought he was going to –"

"Don't worry about it," Bruce interrupted with a sigh, running a hand down his face as Tony turned his eyes towards him. "It's not really your fault. I mean – I was pissed at you but. I did it. I deserved it. I was a coward too. I couldn't tell him the truth."

Tony frowned as his eyes turned back up towards the ceiling. He'd thought about it for a long time, Bruce's guilt, the way that monster looked at him, tried to assess that he was okay, what Rhodey had told him about the police file, how his mother had been beaten to death right in front of him. But it wasn't until that moment that it occurred to him and he shifted in bed, turning over on his side to look at him.

"There's something about that case I never told you," he said, hoping he could offer Bruce some peace after so long.

Bruce turned his head to look at him, brows furrowing, looking guarded.

"Taylor's girlfriend was there, with him," Tony said slowly, suddenly nervous about how Bruce might react. "In her police interview she claimed Taylor was drunk and trying to rape her. That she resisted but he wouldn't stop. She said he was distracted and she got away but..."

There as a moment where Bruce's eyes went blank, like he was very far away, and Tony studied him carefully, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement when suddenly he sat up, leaning over the bed, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, his whole body shaking.

"Bruce?" Tony asked softly, sitting up and sliding over to him, afraid to touch him, unsure if Bruce was there or if he would trigger... something.

It took some time but eventually Bruce stopped trembling and tucked his knees up under his chin, burying his face in them. Tony moved to the edge of the bed to sit next to him, pressed up against him – hip to hip. He didn't know what to say but he hoped that just being there was enough.

"I remember," Bruce mumbled after a long time and Tony didn't say anything to discourage him. "I was... really high." He rubbed at his eyes, turned his head away from Tony. "I remember hearing shouting, 'no no,' you know? I just..."

Tony realized he was crying just a little and he leaned further into him, kissing his shoulder softly.

"All this time out here," he murmured into his skin, "and you never hurt anyone who wasn't already hurting someone else."

"But he didn't deserve to _die_." Bruce's voice caught, sounding completely hopeless and Tony hated it for him, hated to hear him sound like that.

"No," Tony agreed, slipping his arm around his shoulders and trying to turn Bruce's head to look at him. "But the world's a shitty place."

If anyone knew that, it was him. He'd had to fire an entire overseas staff while being celebrated for hiring in the US, as if those people didn't deserve jobs too. He had no way of knowing how many drugs were sold under his name, how many people were hurt for that. Maybe Bruce didn't believe that he understood – his red rimmed eyes were skeptical, hurt. But he did. He did.

"The only thing we can do is just appreciate when it's good, you know?" he said with a small smile, hoping Bruce understood.

"How?" Bruce replied, voice small, as lost and hurt and full of longing as Tony was when he'd asked him the same thing months ago and Tony ran his hand back through Bruce's curls.

"I don't know," he replied quietly, leaning in to kiss him with all the tenderness he deserved. "But I've got some ideas."


	25. Epilogue

Bruce's eyes fluttered open at the feeling of Tony's lips on his neck and combined with the warmth of the sun on the bed it made him moan. Tony slid his leg up over his own, pressing it up into his crotch, feeling Tony's own dick half hard against his hip. He turned his head, seeking out Tony's lips with his own, kissing him lazily as Tony's hand slipped beneath the sheets, pulling at him playfully.

As much as he wanted to push him away, do his rounds, get ready for this afternoon, Tony's attention eased the anxiety festering in his gut. After a year Betty finally convinced him to bring Tony to dinner. Unfortunately it was Thanksgiving dinner and her parents would be there and he was kind of freaking out. It made it feel like he and Tony were a _thing_ and they just...

They really didn't talk about it. Unannounced he would come to stay for a couple days, maybe a week and a half, every few months. It was like being permanently stuck in the honeymoon phase, the little bit of time they got together. Bruce would go about his job, coming back to Tony relaxing in his trailer between rounds, falling into bed with him until they were so hungry they had to eat, never discussing anything but what happened between them in those metal-reinforced walls.

Bruce wasn't stupid – he saw the tabloids. Pictures of Tony caught making out with models, in clubs with whole bottles in his hand, publicly falling apart as his COO managed the company beneath him. But Bruce didn't care. Tony was never meant to be his. What they had together when they had it was good. He didn't question that. They both knew Bruce had his own demons.

"Ready for round two?" Tony murmured, biting at Bruce's lower lip, clearly unconcerned with Bruce's reply.

"I need to do rounds, take a shower," Bruce answered, rolling into Tony's body and tucking his head up under his chin.

"I'm excited," Tony said, poking a finger into his hip and making Bruce jump, knocking Tony's chin and his teeth together.

"You deserved that," Bruce muttered as he resettled himself against Tony, snuggling in closer as Tony laughed.

"Seriously," Tony replied, running a hand down his back, though Bruce doubted that very much.

Tony had plenty of things to entertain him in his life – a family dinner with his adoptive family could not be very high on his list. Plus it just... it felt like such a violation of what they had. Okay, it had been nearly a year, but they didn't _do_ stuff like this. Introducing him to his family? There would be questions. Questions without answers. It was just going to be weird.

"I'm not going to embarrass you – intentionally, anyway," Tony teased and Bruce rolled his eyes, pushing him away to stand and pull on some pants to go do his rounds.

"I'm more concerned about how I'm going to explain 'here's my plus one, Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries,'" Bruce said as he pulled a shirt over his head. "I mean Betty knows but..."

"Maybe they won't recognize me?" Tony offered, stretching on the bed in a way that Bruce knew was intentionally enticing.

"Oh please." Bruce rolled his eyes. "You're on the cover of like every magazine at the grocery check-out. Not to mention the news."

Tony grimaced and looked away. It came a little too close to discussing the things they never discussed and Bruce instantly regretted it, throwing a pillow at him to lighten the mood.

"Just means I get to see you all the time," he mused, leaning over the bed and kissing at the little smile on Tony's lips.

"You lucky bastard," Tony replied as Bruce pulled away and he picked up the pillow and pushed it into his face one more time for good measure before leaving to the sound of Tony's laughter.

He did his rounds – thankful that it was the fall and there weren't many campers – and returned to Tony getting out of the shower, toweling himself off. They kissed for a minute as Bruce took over the shower and Tony did... whatever he did... to his hair. Bruce was convinced he used foundation or something too sometimes – but he had yet to catch Tony in the act of putting it on.

Although Bruce thought Tony looked fucking great naked with bedhead and stubble, he had to admit he looked pretty good with his hair done, dressed in a tight pair of jeans with a big belt and a classy grey ribbed sweater turtleneck Bruce was pretty sure was custom tailored. He felt a little faux pas next to him an overly large, mostly brown fair isle sweater Betty had gotten him for Christmas many years ago but he didn't care – it was his favorite. And anyway, they were just going to Betty's. But sometimes the contrast in their lives juxtaposed in ridiculous little ways that made Bruce uncomfortable, and Tony's sports car sitting in his lot as they climbed into the Jeep didn't help.

But then they were on the highway and Tony was reclining his seat, singing along with the radio half-heartedly, asking annoyingly innocuous questions about his family, and – in the few moments in between that he was quiet – stealing unsubtle glances at Bruce from the corner of his eye. He couldn't imagine going on a road trip with him. It was unbelievable to Bruce that Tony managed to travel the whole country by himself back when he was a paranormal investigator.

He managed to contain a laugh. It was a thing he knew forever – life was ridiculous and inexplicable. But the way he met Tony? Looking back on it now, how could he ever explain it?

Tony reached his arm across the seat, stroking his fingers along the back of Bruce's neck as they pulled off the highway. It did nothing for his anxiety but it was nice, that kind of casual intimacy, knowing that he was there.

When he pulled up to Betty's quaint little house he parked in the road, giving her parents the space to leave if they wanted, and ignoring Tony and the quick kiss he wanted to give him completely as he stepped out of the car. But Tony didn't seem too miffed, more amused than anything, and he followed behind Bruce to the door, taking everything in.

Betty's house had become familiar to him now, he visited almost every other weekend these days, but he still knocked, asking to be invited in.

Leonard opened the door with a grin as Jude came running through the house, screaming Bruce's name in the high-pitched excitement of a three year old and he could just make out Tony's laughter behind him as Bruce bent down to welcome him into his arms. But as soon as Jude got a glimpse of Tony behind him he grew shy and buried his face on Bruce's shoulder.

"That's Tony," Bruce told him softly before looking up at Leonard. "Leonard – Tony. And Tony, Leonard," he introduced and they shook hands.

"Great to finally meet you," Leonard said with a genuine smile and if Tony being a CEO intimidated him, he sure didn't show it. "It's freezing out here – come in, come in!"

They walked in, being lead to the kitchen where Karen and Betty were in a full on fuss over the turkey and whether it was done or not. Betty pushed back her hair from her face, unable yet to tie it back into a ponytail but close, looking up to see them walking in. Immediately her face lit up with a huge grin and she stepped around the butcherblock covered in side dishes to lean up and plant a light kiss on Bruce's cheek and ruffle Jude's hair where he was still tucked up against Bruce's neck.

"And you must be Tony," Betty greeted as she turned, one hand on her very pregnant stomach as she reached for his with the other.

"So nice to finally meet you," Tony replied as he took her hand, squeezing it warmly with that handsome little half-smile he did that was sincere and endearing before turning to Karen. "And Bruce's mom? Can I call you Bruce's mom? I'm still a little kid at heart."

From all the stories Bruce had told Tony he knew that there was nothing Karen wanted more than for Bruce to accept her as his mother – even though she had never tried to replace her. It was a sure fire way to win her over instantly, though.

" _You_ can call me whatever you want," Karen replied, clearly overcome with emotion, hesitating for a minute before wrapping him in a very unexpected hug that Tony tried not to repel from, much to Bruce's amusement.

"Just don't call her mashed potatoes lumpy," Leonard warned as Karen removed herself from Tony and Betty hit her husband with a potholder.

"Thad is impossible to please," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "Though maybe Tony is the same way – you probably eat gourmet every day."

Tony laughed. Bruce could tell he was in full-fledged entertainer mode, but it was soft around the edges and he hoped Tony was actually comfortable – or that he would be.

"It's a lot more Chinese take out than you would expect," he answered with an embarrassed grin. "And this? Smells _amazing_. Plus, if you're the one who taught Bruce here how to cook..." Tony elbowed Bruce in the ribs as Karen blushed slightly.

"Bwuce," Jude whispered quite loudly and Bruce turned his attention back to his nephew as Tony continued to compliment his cooking. "I wanna eat."

"Well, if _someone_ would admit that the turkey was done..." Betty cast an accusatory glance at Karen, who hovered back to the oven to glance in through the window.

"It has to get to 165 for at least a minute or two and –" Karen started, only to be mostly ignored by the others as she re-explained the finer details of cooking a turkey.

"Hand Jude to Leo and go say hi to dad," Betty directed with a smile as she turned back to listen to her mom.

Bruce did as instructed and Tony followed him out to the screened in porch where Thad was smoking a cigar. He slid open the door and stepped out, Thad turning his head just slightly to eye them both, nodding a little. As eagerly as Karen wanted Bruce to accept them as his parents, Thad was equally as apathetic. Not that Bruce particularly cared – ultimately he did more for Bruce than anyone else ever had in his life. Except for maybe Tony, by erasing those video files and keeping his secret.

"This is Tony Stark," Bruce said, turning from Thad to Tony. "Tony – Thaddeus Ross."

"Nice cigars," Tony complimented quickly, running his fingers over the labels where they rested in the humidor on the patio table.

"You would know," Thad replied, as indifferent as always. "Want one? Bruce never developed a taste for them."

Bruce wasn't sure if that was an insult or not but he let it drop, watching as Tony stared at the box, clearly craving one.

"Maybe after dinner," Tony finally answered. "I think it's almost done."

Thad snorted. "Is that what they told you?"

For a minute they stood there, Bruce growing more and more uncomfortable with every second, not knowing what to say until Thad spoke up.

"CEO, huh?"

For a minute he and Tony exchanged minor conversation about business and the stock market and Bruce was seriously relieved when Betty came to retrieve them.

Although Bruce felt so anxious he could hardly eat, Tony clearly had no such problem and joked with Karen about never getting a home cooked meal as he loaded his plate.

"You know, Bruce never cooks for us," Betty mused with a hand brushing Bruce's shoulder as she handed Jude his plate.

"Does he have to?" Tony asked, making a hand motion across the table as he knocked his foot into Bruce's beneath it. "You ladies seem to have it under control."

"But I cooked for you for two months," Bruce replied in shock, ignoring Tony as he watched Betty walk around the table to her seat across from him.

"You made peanut butter sandwiches and mac n cheese for two months," Betty corrected with a grin. "Not that I blame you, being a mom is hard."

"I did have two children to deal with, you'll know what that's like soon," Bruce teased as she laughed.

"When is the baby due?" Tony asked over a forkful of potatoes.

"The day after New Years," Betty smiled coyly. "So if you have no other plans and she's on time..."

"I'll bring the champagne," Tony volunteered and though it was a nice thought, Bruce doubted very much that it was any more than that.

Still, Tony grinned at him as he took a bite – a real, big, genuine grin – and Bruce hated the way his heart seized. Fucking Tony. He hated how damn in love with him he really was. It was easier to pretend they were just inconvenient fuckbuddies. Clearly, meeting his family was a supremely poor decision. This all felt entirely too close.

For a while they talked about the baby and the nursery and potential names and Tony was perfectly charming the whole time. And he complimented the food and "snuck" Jude more mashed potatoes and olives behind Bruce's back and laughed at all Betty's high school stories about Bruce. It was just so damn _easy_ to have him there. He fit right in.

Eventually Betty requested Bruce help her in the kitchen with dessert as Karen got up to pour Thad and Tony some brandy and as soon as they were behind the closed door Betty was punching him in the shoulder and grinning like crazy.

"What do you mean, 'just friends?'" she hissed, pulling the pumpkin roll from the fridge.

Bruce didn't say anything, just gave her a look and grabbed the dessert plates from the cupboard.

"He's so in love with you _dad_ probably sees it," she continued as she sliced the roll and Bruce cringed.

They had intentionally not told Thad that there was any involvement between the two of them, though they had filled in the far more perceptive Karen, because it just didn't seem worth the potential chastising. There were certain lectures Bruce found he was far too old for.

"I told you –"

"Move to New York with him Bruce," Betty interrupted, her eyes pleading. "The way he looks at you – it's like no one else in the whole world matters. And you're not much better. Whatever you say, I can _tell_ you're in love."

"I can't," Bruce replied firmly, opening the silverware drawer and pulling out a handful of forks.

"And why not?" Betty argued, a hand on her hip as she set down the pastry knife, looking ready for a fight, but Bruce ignored her.

"What we have is good because it's not all the time," Bruce replied instead, setting the forks down on the plates and looking her in the eyes. "I don't need to be in his personal life all the time to care for him – in fact, it's better that I'm not. He hates everything in New York – that's why he keeps coming back to me."

It was cold but it was realistic. Maybe Tony did care for him beyond that, maybe he did love him, but the fact of the matter was if he rushed off to New York with him eventually he would just be one more thing dragging him down every day and Bruce never wanted to be that. Not to mention how miserable he would be living with the constant fear of his monster.

Betty sighed and pushed the hair out of her face again, clearly disappointed in him. She opened her mouth to speak, then made a face of shock, leaning over the butcherblock with a hand pressed to her stomach.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked, concerned, knowing how worried the doctors where when she got pregnant, unhappy about the short amount of time between such a traumatic physical experience and well, another traumatic physical experience.

"Yeah," she managed after a minute, taking a breath and trying to straighten out. "She just shifted on a nerve and started kicking like crazy. She doesn't have much space in there! Jude was never this active."

"Come on," Bruce said, picking up the plates and an apple pie sitting on the counter. "Let's go sit down."

Tony immediately looked up at him when they walked back in, smiling, completely shifting his focus from Leonard who was still in the middle of his speaking, and Bruce thought about what Betty said, his heart pounding and his face going hot involuntarily. He set down the pie and handed Tony a plate, meeting his dreamy eyes, looking wistful and totally in love and Bruce couldn't help the way that made him feel.

Bruce never wished for more than what they had – there was no point in it. But... he also never let himself think too hard about it. He didn't need Betty interfering and making things harder than they had to be.

"We've got pumpkin roll or apple pie," Betty said as she sat down and Tony grinned, setting down his tumbler with interest.

"Or both?"

Karen laughed, clearly pleased with Tony's appetite and his appreciation. "How do you even have room?"

"I'll make room," Tony assured her as Bruce handed Jude a piece of pumpkin roll and then took Tony's plate with a piece of pie already on it and added some pumpkin roll for him as well.

The rest of the evening was nice, Tony going out with Thad to smoke a cigar on the porch, Karen and Betty taking Jude up for a bath, leaving Bruce and Leonard to bitch about work as they cleaned up the kitchen for the ladies. They got beers when they were done, heading into the living room, but Karen was on the stairs, motioning to them and grabbing Bruce by the arm when they were close enough.

"Jude wants you to put him to bed," she said with a smile. "If that's okay?"

Bruce chuckled, shooting a pleased glance at Leonard to make sure it was okay with him, getting a nod of approval from his brother-in-law.

"Of course," Bruce answered, handing his beer to Leonard to hold on to and Karen followed him to the stairs.

"I'm so happy for you," she said quietly, hugging him tightly for a moment. "Tony is such a nice guy. I always hoped you would find someone who appreciated you."

Bruce felt incredibly embarrassed but he gave her a quick squeeze, knowing she meant well. As much as he struggled with her replacing his mother, she was good to him. She had always been good to him. He would always be his mother's son, but he was _her_ son, too.

"I always had you and Betty," he offered quietly, heading up the stairs before she could say anything else, greeting Betty in Jude's room.

"I'm sorry, he just –" Betty started but Bruce just smiled as Jude came up and hugged his legs.

"Don't worry about it," Bruce interrupted. "Just try and save Tony from Thad at some point."

Betty laughed and agreed, leaving them as Bruce leaned down to pick up Jude to the enthusiastic cries of "Airplane! Airplane!"

Bruce spun him around and around, flopping him into bed and tickling him mercilessly until he couldn't breathe. When he looked at Jude, red-faced and ecstatic, wet hair from his bath stuck to his forehead, Bruce was just so happy he was going to be getting a sister. It would change his life – in the best way.

He read their favorite – _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_. And then a few more, for good measure – and because he was the uncle and allowed to spoil him. Jude was yawning and bleary-eyed by the time Bruce stood to pull the cord on the light and bend over to switch on his night light next to the bed.

"I love you," Bruce finally managed, bending down to kiss his forehead.

"I wuv you, Bwuce," Jude replied, closing his eyes, and Bruce could hardly contain the smile that broke out over his face. It was worth it. Everything he had been through had been worth it.

Quietly he stepped out, startled to find Tony there in the hallway, watching him at an angle through the open door. Bruce gave him a look, questioning, but Tony just drew him in by the waist, pulling him to him, kissing him thoroughly, tenderly. Tony tasted like cigars and brandy and pie and Bruce was still smiling, everything he loved, everyone he loved all here, wrapped up together, and though he had been nervous it was perfect. Perfect.

And frankly, if he had to settle for being alone most of his life, he was okay with that just to have a few perfect moments like this.

"I love you, Bwuce," Tony teased in a whisper, drawing back just slightly, eyes sparkling in the dark.

It was the first time in a year since he'd uttered those desperate words through the door, falling into Bruce's ear where it was pressed up against it, and his heart clenched in exactly the same way to hear it again – words he never thought he would hear, words he never thought he deserved.

"I love you, too," he whispered back, closing his eyes and kissing Tony again. It only took a moment to whisper those four words, but it was perfect.


End file.
